What the pope can teach our PM and police

No not taking public transport*: the Pope used to do so when he was the Argie cardinal, but the importance of public communication:

The Jesuits, missionaries and educators, are trained to be expert communicators and it is significant that among the first people summoned to meet the new Pope at his hotel suite this morning was fellow Jesuit Father Lombardi – official Vatican spokesperson, head of Vatican Radio (run for many years by the Jesuits) and of the Vatican Press Office.

Under Pope Benedict, Father Lombardi was a mere functionary who had no direct access to the pontiff.

He could not pick up the phone and talk things through quickly with Benedict himself. He received orders from the Vatican Secretariat of State and briefed the press accordingly. All that has changed overnight.

Pope Francis has already decided he will meet the world’s media who have arrived in their thousands to cover the papal election at a special audience on Saturday morning.

This shows a vivid awareness that prayer may not be enough to deal with the situation facing the Catholic Church at this critical moment in its long history. Public relations will be a priority at a particularly sensitive moment of papal transition. Extract from BBC Online.

So when I read  the article “Govt will need to be more open, says PM”. (Sunday Times, Mar 17),which went on: “the Government will become more transparent to adapt to society today, even if politics becomes untidy and its outcomes less predictable”; I thought maybe a good step would be to bring in a Jesuit FT** as the govt’s public communications adviser? Local talent s/o Devan Nair, once a very senior keyboard-wielding Imperial Storm Trooper, the chief of govt communications, seems to have gone AWOL.

Witness the bad PR our SPF is having to face in its investigations of the death of Shane Todd. No-one to blame except the PR people in govt or the SPF: witness  a mealy-mouthly letter that is so ambiguous that it can be used as evidence of incompetency:

“In the course of its investigation, the Police had examined the deceased’s computers and a hard disk drive. This disk drive was subsequently handed over, with acknowledgement, to the next-of-kin. Should the next-of-kin be in possession of other evidence, they should provide it to the Police to assist in their investigations.”

http://www.spf.gov.sg/mic/2013/130220_reply_article_others.htm

This was written to the FT which reported the parents allegation that they had found a hard drive lying around (implying police incompetency or worse). There seems in this letter to be an insinuation that it is the same hard drive, and that the parents are lying. But didn’t dare not say so because it could be a different hard drive: the police just don’t know.

A well written letter would have said the police now want to establish if this is the same hard drive that was handed to the parents, and offer to provide the FT with details of the hard drive it (the police) handed over so that the FT could establish whether it was the same or different hard drive.

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*But if PM had taken public tpt, he would have realised that Ms Saw and Raymond Lim were making misleading statements on the state of public transport: blaming commuters for having unreasonable expectations. Turned out commuters were right to complain of overcrowded public transport, especially of trains. Our money that the govt is throwing at the problem is proof that us commuters were right, and Saw and Raymond Lim were misrepresenting the situation.

**I don’t think there any any S’porean Jesuits. Any S’porean capable of becoming a Jesuit ends up as a scholar.

So SPF didn’t pursue “every lead and examine the different angles thoroughly”?

Until the US told S’pore to,”wake up yr ideas”?

Oh the shame of being a S’porean. Our SPG SPF investigators are negligent, blind as bats, not trained to recognise PC peripherals or just plain dumb. And this is after the failure to put a terrorist fugitive’s close relative’s home under surveillance (he dropped in to hide), after a senior police man tot nothing of having an affair that he publicly admitted, and where an investigator is undergoing disciplinary proceedings for a possible ang moh kaw tua kee attitude.

A few weeks ago, I was reading my Saturday FT. There was a long story on a death by hanging of a young American scientist here. As I was reading the story, it was clear that his parents were kicking up a fuss, saying that the S’pore police was not doing a good job investigating the death (they still do). Well they were in grief, that was to be expected, and given what they were alleging, some really wacko stuff, that their allegations of police failures had to be discounted. This is S’pore, not Hicksville USA or some third world country. I was going to give up reading the piece and complain to FT about the trash they were reporting.

Then I read that our police investigators did not secure a hard drive. The dead American’s parents said it was lying on a table in full view of anyone in the room, that they didn’t know what it was, but took it away anyway, then found out that it was a hard drive that contained files from his office PC (and which now our police want access to).

The fact that our police failed to secure a hard drive made me understand his parents apprehensions and anger: we were Hicksville USA or some third world country, and the FT was right to report the story. The police had secured his PC and mobile phone but not a hard drive that was allegedly in full view on a table. If the police could be so sloppy, or worse, anything is possible. As the Population White Paper shows, a sloppy, slip-shod, careless mistake can undermine any attempt to be authoritative http://atans1.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/population-white-paper-2030-will-resemble-1959/.

We S’poreans have been told by govt ministers, PAP MPs and an NMP (who was a PAPpie once) that bitching too loud about the policy of letting in FTs by the cattle-truck load, was not good for S’pores image, and could jeopardise economic growth because FTs will be scared away.

How come the same people don’t complain that incompetent police investigation could jeopardise our economy? I mean Foreign Talents may not want to live in a place where the police can’t secure a hard drive (which they now say could contain important evidence).

Now the SPF has invited the FBI to help it, something that it had earlier resisted. In a statement, our embassy in the U.S said that the investigation that began with the Todd death in June is “still ongoing and the Singapore Police will pursue every lead and examine examine the different angles thoroughly.” Not done before? An “honest mistake”? More likely, an avoidable mistake.

Then CNA reported Singapore’s Foreign Minister K Shanmugam said authorities are “committed to getting to the bottom” of the death of an American researcher in Singapore last year … Speaking in Washington, Mr Shanmugam said Singapore has invited the United States to audit the relationship between Todd’s employer, the Institute of Microelectronics, and the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.

This is total abject surrender by S’pore of its sovereign rights. Might as well accede to the parents’ demand that the FBI supervise our SPF’s investigation? Surprised that these country folk, didn’t demand that the SEALs, Delta Force and the Marines invade S’pore to forcibly secure their son’s body and possessions?

Sorry, I forgot that our boys in blue really goofed up, and added unnecessary mental anguish to the grieving parents. Death of a child is hard to take: the possibility that he may have committed suicide is even harder to take. Best to go into denial and blame it on a conspiracy.

The least DPM Teo can do to limit damage to the police’s image locally and internationally, is to announce publicly that the members of the team that initially investigated the hanging have been replaced*. Pigs would fly first though sadly, even though I have heard on the grapevine that there have changes in the team that originally investigated the hanging. This being the PAP govt, it refuses to acknowledge that anything can go wrong in govt, until  too late.

And would Mrs Chiam or a PAP MP ask DPM Teo the outcome, if any, of the internal police disciplinary inquiry into the conduct of the investigator who, on the face of it, took a tidak apa, ang moh tua kee attitude when two true blue S’poreans were brutally assaulted by three ang moh caws? Two of whom skipped bail, one of whom got PR status after the assault. Another “honest mistake”?

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*And announce that the same team that visited film-maker Lynn Lee’s home at night, to secure her handphone and laptop because the police were investigating a film she made where PRC FT  SMRT drivers alleged that they were mistreated by the police. Now they are on the bola, zealous cops.

AIM: Taz what netizens & WP should do

– Don’t any how fire & volvo

The PAP,made flesh in Dr Teo Ho Pin, and the constructive, nation-building media are “throwing smoke”, trying to confuse S’poreans on the issues around AIM.

The sad thing is all the noise about AIM being a $2 co, or not having the expertise etc that is coming from many of us  ”cowboys”, is distracting S’poreans from the four issues that matter:

– As Aljunied GRC seems to be one of the GRCs that paid for the development costs of the software that was transferred to AIM, how come AIM can cancel contract if a GRC moves on to the Jedi (OK, OK, I exaggerate) from the Dark Side of the Men in White? Sure it’s in contract, but is this ethically or morally correct? Didn’t LKY say we are a Confucian society? Ethically behaviour is expected.

– Is the WP being fixed by being deprived of AIM’s services? And what are the implications if there is a change of govt? Will the civil service, armed forces, police and government agencies cancel contracts with the new govt? From what happened with AIM’s contract, sounds reasonable to assume this.

– What is the service level agreement (SLA) in the leasing? This includes questions such as what levels of help desk and technical support, how many staff will be providing support, or is AIM outsourcing the support to another company?

[Update: Straits Times reported today that service was 'outsourced' from AIM back to NCS, and the TCs must know this intention when awarding the contract. So the questions are why would they allow that having terminated NCS's services themselves, and what value does AIM add as the middleman. They have to come clean or face accusations of some sort of 'round-tripping'.]

– Can a contract between PAP town councils and a company 100%-owned by former PAP MPs be considered arm’s length? Should it be allowed at all to avoid even the slightest appearance of any potential conflict of interest?

The points in Italics are from Void Decker who has a great piece on this matter: he is on target.

The WP never made allegations about whether AIM was a $2 co or its competency. It tried to focus (in its unfocused, dysfunctional way*), I think, on the first  two issues that shld concern us.

Sadly netizens are not focusing on the substantive issues. Partly it’s because of the hols and because CNY is coming in February.

But the WP is at fault too: its public communications team is a clone of that of Team PAP. Maybe Team Wayang Wankers should ask help from the real Opposition: Team SDP; Ravi the do-gooder (even if he from NSP); TOC (even if it’s undergoing editor change again*); or TRE. Or even TJS.

These are people who know how to communicate effectively with the public. BTW, only KennethJ*** is worse at communicating with the public than Team PAP and the Wayang Wankers.

“Target 50m ahead. At own time and pace, open fire. Make every shot count. Beng Pek mah?

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*Show Mao is not pulling his weight, not being allowed to, or maybe he not that savvy? Will explore this later in yr, in “The AWOL, MIA of Show Mao”. Maybe Low and Sylvia were playing bait and switch, like investment bankers, and time-sharing salesmen?

As to the other two lawyers in Team Wankers Wayang, Sylvia got only so-so NUS law degree while PritamS got his from a crappy place, SMU Law School.

**New chief editor soon. It will by then have run through two Indian chiefs (they are actually Tamils, not Native Americans, or Aryans) in less than 11 months. Then there is the disappearance from TOC’s establishment, in 2011, of two ex-WP cadres and activists, Goh Meng Seng**** (Head of the Chinese Section) and Eric Tan (Managing Editor and then investigative editor). AWOL, MIA, or posts abolished: who knows?

But one of the co-founders is still active in editorially. So there is continuity.

****But then he speak in ang moh accent, don’t know the Pledge and was from Saint Andrews: the school where boys have two rugby props on each of their of shoulders. But despite having cips on his shoulders, a Saints rugby captain says on Facebook that KennethJ is not a Saints. More on this later in the year.

****Also ex-NSP member. Anything else he was member of?

LKY gets kicked in the balls

“I’ve seen their property values going up, five times, 10 times, 15 times, 20 times,” our MSM reported him as saying recently.

This is what the SDP said in response, “Yes, and what for? To feel rich? Under the SDP Plan, Singaporeans don’t just have to feel rich. They can have their NOM flats and not be indebted for the rest of their lives. They can have financial security and lead fulfilling lives.” http://yoursdp.org/news/sdp_responds_to_lee_kuan_yew_on_housing/2012-11-07-5435

No comment about about SDP’s plans (this is what ST reported “experts” say): thinking about it. But it sure got great PR people team. Maybe PAP or govt should offer them jobs? MP Baey should recruit them for his firm? Can’t be good for H&R’s local and Asean practice that SDP is running rings round PAP and govt? The Dark Side can offer serious money, unlike the SDP. Unless of course, the rumours of CIA funding are not true. An SDP groupie assures me that CIA funding rumours are juz rumours. SDP as poor as Anglican church mice. Catholic church mice got serious money, what with Tony Tan (the president, not Hazel Poa’s hubbie) and George Yeo as members. Goes without saying that Methodist mice got $. Think Ng Eng Hen and wife (SingHeath CEO), and TJS’s in-laws.

SMRT: $15,000 not enough

Talk of bad PR.

When I read that the Thai gal sued SMRT, I didn’t think much of her case. I tot that she should have accepted reasonable compensation and moved on.

But when I read that SMRT says that its $15,000 offer was “unprecedented”, I tot what a dumb, mean company.

I don’t know waz a fair amount would be taking into account her injuries and that it isn’t SMRT’s fault. But $15,000 is not it. Its legal costs would easily exceed $100,000.

I had been looking to buy shares in SMRT, but I’ll give it a miss for the time being. Want to see if mgt changes are working.

Anyway, hopefully the FT brought in to replace an ex-SAF officer will do something to change SMRT’s bad record in public communications. The SAF officer said once “Better you die, than damage SMRT property”.  Ya I exaggerate, but that was the message he gave when a commuter smashed a glass panel to let air into a train stuck in a tunnel.

When SPH & DBS team up well, S’pore Inc can be Awesome

If anyone thinks that SPH’s publications have lost their clout because of new media, citing the bad reception that Pay Wayang, SMRTgate and PondingGate got from the public despite these publications spinning all the way for the White Side, the way that they covered DBS’s CloneGate shows their clout, even in the age of new media.

Customers were reassured, and the usual moaners were ignored by the public even though DBS is part of the Temasek Group (that S’poreans love to hate partly because its CEO is the wife of the PM), and the public and its customers often view DBS as dysfunctional.

SPH’s publications when combined with an effective public communications strategy is a fearsome tool.

DBS got its strategy right, moving “quickly to assure customers that their losses will be covered and investigations are underway. Experts were immediately put on air not to put a spin on why it’s not a big deal, but rather explain concisely how the scam probably occurred and is being carried out,” Words of the Cze. (If it had tried to weasel its way out, I for one would have asked how come the data theft could have occured at two high traffic ATMs, and why OCBC or UOB were not hit first? Why was DBS so dysfunctional?)

Don’t believe me? Reading ST (and MediaCorp’s freesheet) even I tot DBS was being generous in quickly compensating its customers until I read this in ST’s Forum. It reminded me (a trained lawyer who did a lot of banking legal work) that  it was DBS that lost money, not the affected customers, “When someone deposits money with a bank, he is in effect lending money to it. Property rights to the money pass to the bank. In return, the bank owes its customer a debt. At that point, any money stolen or pilfered from the bank is its money, not its customer’s,” SMU academic. (BTW, I get the impression that a very impt KPI for SMU academics is how often they are quoted in the local MSM. One wonders if they have time to do other things.)

The PAP, SMRT and PUB did not get their public communications strategy right (see the above link on what PUB and SMRT did wrong) and SPH could not play its traditional constructive, nation-building role in helping out the White Side.

Coming back to DBS. When its CEO early last week ( his second anniversary at DBS) came out boasting of his achievements, I tot, “Nemesis” and “What bad news is he foreshadowing?”. Well Nemesis has struck and DBS has reacted very, very well to what could have been a major public relations fiasco. As to the bad news, “Watch and wait”.

But DBS is no longer dysfunctional. Could it be a turnaround situation, worth investing in? In Q3 2011, DBS’s return on equity was ahead of OCBC and UOB. BTW I own Haw Par shares which is a play on UOB.

PAP: Another Unnecessary Self-Inflicted Social Media Injury

Well Grace Fu’s actions have confirmed that the PAP still has problems using social media, showing that Chua Chu Kang GRC MP Zaqy Mohamad (he is on PAP committee tasked to tame the Internet) was talking rubbish late last year when he boasted, “The first few years were about the PAP sensing the platforms and understanding how to use it. Now it’s really (about) how to use these platforms for political mileage and political advantage.” (Emphasis mine)

Grace Fu’s use of Facebook to bitch* abt her pay cut effective destroyed the PM’s attempt to use a deep ministerial salary cut to rebuild political capital and reclaim the moral high ground for the PAP. Before her outburst, which to be fair, from which she repented rather quickly, or rather claimed that we “misunderstood” her (Like we misunderstood Han or Han misunderstood SMRT’s SVP? Wah PAP sure got great miscommunicators? Or we “Lesser Mortals” are daft?), the critics could only rail in the abstract against the quantum, principles and methodology adopted by Gerald Ee and friends. S’poreans would soon have got bored with the abstractions. All the PAP needed to do was to sit tight for a while, until the critics bored S’poreans with hot air, and exhausted themselves.

(With all due respect to the critics, they have nothing new to say. “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”: Ecclesiastes 1:9)

After Grace Fu’s outburst, the critics had an alleged PAP princess** to beat up and abuse. And that they did, inflicting seriously collateral damage on the PM, cabinet and PAP.

This is not the first time that a female PAPy’s use (misuse?) of social media backfired on the PAP and PM.It has happened before.

Tin Pei Ling was earmarked to be Young PAPpies’ superstar and celebrity, showing that one could be young, fun-loving, brainless, parrot-like, wooden in public, marry well and have a career, and be a PAPpy on the make. The narrative didn’t work because the script did not tell her to privatise her Facebook page, making her pixs etc hostages to fortune. She compounded her initial mistake by appointing “Fat Fingered” Denise as her Facebook administrator. Denise He promptly broke the law, getting a serious warning from the police.  Netizens wanted Denise and Tin to be hung, drawn and quartered, which was never going to happen. I mean even drug mules only get hung if convicted.

So should the PAP appoint a social media commissar to clear all messages before they are made public? Take out the spontaneity rather than allow bird brains or air heads to destroy “The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men”?

Or tell ministers and MPs to be like MP Zaqy? A Malaysian Malay told me that his S’pore relations noticed that he (Zaqy) is never a leader, always a follower on Facebook. He allowed Halimah (ladies first?) to come out guns a’blazing at Han before he added his stab wounds. Wait for a cue, then action, is the message he would have told Ms Fu?

Why Han sat down and kept quiet

(Or “Why Han stopped digging a grave  for himself and the PAP”)

Almost two weeks since Han came up with a new excuse every five minutes for his remarks that had racist overtones. Looks like he left the last word to Indian buddy Shanmugam (Where’s his Malay buddy?). Maybe he realised what he was up against?

To recap.

Here’s what MediaCorp says SVP Goh Kong Chee of SMRT said on radio that is the “source” of Seng Han Thong’s problems, “And that’s because our staff of different races, it could be Malay, Chinese, or Indians or any other race, they sometimes find it difficult to speak in English.“

Han said on his Facebook page:

I notice that the PR mention that, some of the staff, because they are Malay, they are Indian, they can’t converse in English good, well enough, so that also deters them, from but I think we accept broken English.”*

Big difference in emphasis. SVP Goh said that there could be language problems, SMRT being a multi-racial workforce. Han’s emphasis is on two specific races, not on a multiracial workforce.

His latest turn in a letter to transport union, “I made the mistake of only mentioning our “Malay” and “Indian” workers where the original quote in the radio interview I was commenting on had cited MRT staff of different races, “Malay, Chinese, or Indians or any other race”.

So he  longer claims that he misheard as ST reported, but that he left out “Chinese” is my understanding of what he is now saying. Was there a need to mention any race at all? Inadvertently or not?

He said he was defending  the use of “broken English” in an emergency. Was there a need to defend this when this wasn’t an issue that SVP Goh of SMRT raised or used as an excuse? He was making a point about SMRT encouraging staff to speak**

Doesn’t this make nonsense of what the Law Minister said when defending Han and “whacking” TOC.*** This I must commend about Shanmugam. He, unlike other MPs, has the courage to make a fool of himself, defending Han. He got balls unlike Zaqy, etc. I’d like to have him (Shanmugam, not Zaqy) beside me if Quan Yifeng went wacko and tried to assault me. Hey Zaqy, being a PAPpie means the balls to be unpopular in yr community. Pandring to yr community is not a gd career move.

The problem that Han (and his apologists like Shanmugam) has is trying to explain why he singled out the “broken English” of two minority races, but omitted that of the Chinese. That is a hard truth. No amount of twisting and turning, or blaming TOC can explain or excuse the singling out by a PAP MP and a unionist of the “Malay” and “Indian” races.

Maybe a more fruitful line for him would be to blame SVP Goh of mentioning race in the first place, and that he (Han) was trying to rebuke him, but his (Han’s) bad English let him down.

And doesn’t this show, to misquote Mr Shanmugam, that “A significant part of what has been attributed to SMRT is false, to be quite blunt about it.” Any this can be said too of the transcription put up on Han’s site. Listen to cooments (link below).

Oh and let’s not forget Han misquoted SMRT’s  PR person. He is the originator of the remarks. He owns them, and cannot disown them.

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“LIES, damn lies and statistics” and two local examples?

Example 1?

So a reasonable interpretation of the minister’s comments below are that the inflation numbers as far as they affect HDB residents and non-car owners are a lot of rubbish because they are not affected. So why not construct an additional index that excludes these costs? The reason that this is not done could be that then other costs have to be included, such as a great weightage for public transport costs, and the cost of public housing. And this could outweigh the costs of rentals and car ownership? Better to talk in general terms, than create a rod to break the PAPpies back?

While Singapore’s economy is headed for a slowdown, Mr Lim noted that inflation is somewhat “persistent” due to factors such as global commodity prices, “particularly fuel and oil prices”. Other causes include the Government’s domestic policies on housing and car ownership, he added.

Reiterating that core inflation is “not unusually high”, Mr Lim said: “So if you are an owner of a HDB flat, the housing prices don’t affect you, and if you are not buying a car, the car prices also don’t affect you.”

Example 2?

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2012/01/misleading-electricity-tariff-chart/

 The chart is misleading because the tariff axis is over-extended … the fluctuations in the electricity tariffs are not clearly depicted and it gives a misperception that the electricity tariffs are not rising as much or as fast a rate as the fuel oil price.

To show a better comparison between the electricity tariff and the fuel oil price, I suggest the tariff axis to range up to 35, to just cover the maximum tariff (30.45 in Oct 08).  This will show the fluctuations of the electricity tariff vis-a-vis those of the fuel oil price better, graphically.

Must read: The ugly reality is that anyone in the know can present statistics so as to create the desired impression, rather than the truth. As usual, you need to know whether the source is credible and honest or not. Recommendations, double checking, second opinions and if necessary, hiring an expert, can all be helpful. One is never totally safe from this kind of falsification, but viable controls are possible. And the more you learn and are aware of the dangers, the safer you are. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/11/lie-with-financial-statistics.asp?partner=ntu11#axzz1fElSc8tZ

 Update at 7.20 pm on 3 January 2011: http://theonlinecitizen.com/2012/01/confused-over-u-save-rebates/ gives many more examples of possible misuse of stats.

CapitaLand: Reason for CEO interview in ST

Two fridays ago, ST has a whole page devoted to an interview with CapitaLand’s CEO. He was trying to explain to CapitaLand was not a China play, and that it was not a financial engineer pretending to be a property developer. It had been until recently playing up that it was a China play, and that it was asset light, using financial egineering, rather than owning assets.

I tot, “Wow, co must be worried abt share price.” Still I was that surprised when late last week, it announced a year-on-yearn 83% drop in its third quarter net profit to S$80.2 million.

Moral of story: Whenever a usually publicity-shy CEO “opens up”,  be wary, very wary.