Casinos: Answers needed

After the Kiddie Games fiasco looks like Vivian Balakrishnan goofed again. It’s getting to be a habit — remember his tirades against the poor, and the homeless and the delay in building a new sports complex.

OK, I’m a bit unfair as the latest goof should be shared with the statutory agency regulating the casinos. And perhaps LTA as surely the bus service must have needed LTA approval?

VB’s ministry and the agency have implicitly admitted that they shouldn’t have allowed the bus service to the heartlands when the ministry said it  and the Casino Regulatory Authority would issue a directive yesterday to stop the shuttle services provided by casino operators.

What is worrying is that despite the service starting officially in June, the authorities only said a few days ago that they would investigate the service. They didn’t know earlier? Or they didn’t care?

If the former, there are all kinds of security implications. If the authorities didn’t know something that was openly done in  contravention of the law, this means that those who want to plant bombs can be reasonably assured they wouldn’t be detected.

If they didn’t care, waz all the talk abt protecting S’poreans against the ills of gambling worth?

And if they didn’t know until recently, why they  didn’t know? And what steps is the PM taking to improve open source and covert intelligence gathering?

And if some ministries or agencies knew, and others didn’t, why wasn’t info shared and why those that didn’t know,  find out. I mean the services were not covert.

I hope the govmin comes clean about when it knew abt the heartland bus service, and if it knew early, why it didn’t do anything for months?

Did some MasterMind realise what VB and clowns were doing or not doing, and break  skulls?

This after all has implications on S’pore’s image for being a gd place to do business because the govmin is efficient, something VB has tarnished with the Kiddie Games and the delay in building a national play pen.

Update 14 Sept https://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/casinos-could-there-have-been-corruption/