Goh Jnr didn’t do his duty

Doing his duties “would have led him to realize that the company was being defrauded,” Justice Aedit Abdullah said in published remarks dated Jan. 24 on a petition involving Inter-Pacific Petroleum Pte. The defense argued there was no such breach or causation of loss, and regardless, the company qualifies for relief from liability under the companies act.

“The financial position of the company was suspect, and should have primed the defendant to look further and obtain a picture of the true state of the affairs of the company and monitor what was happening within it,” the judge said. “That was his duty as a director.”

“Loss was caused to the plaintiff through the transactions and drawdowns which should not have been carried out and would not have been had the defendant performed his duties,” the judge said.

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/singapore-ex-pms-son-found-liable-for-millions-lost-by-company-082519893.html

But pa would still be happy if he was earning millions?

Remember GCT saying publicly that if S’pore reduced its ministerial wages, it will “end up with very, very mediocre people, who can’t even earn a million dollars outside”?

Goh Jr was trying to show pa that he was not “mediocre”? He could earn millions

Remember GCT saying publicly that if S’pore reduced its ministerial wages, it will “end up with very, very mediocre people, who can’t even earn a million dollars outside”?

So maybe Goh Jr was trying real hard to earn a million dollars or more to show pa he wasn’t a bankrupt lying bum, like one Karl Liew? Karl’s pa was earning millions.

Justice Abdullah said Goh had an obligation to oversee the affairs of the company as a director.

“The obligation is to monitor the affairs of the corporation,” he said. “This entails, among others, at least broad level supervision of the activities of the officers of the corporation, for the protection of the company, shareholders and creditors.”

The judge said the evidence showed that Goh played an active role in the management of the company and had assumed responsibilities, and obtained knowledge and information.

While Justice Abdullah said a director need not know all details, the evidence showed a lack of knowledge by Goh about IPP’s cargo trading business, which was a significant portion of the company’s activity.

There were three “red flags” that should have triggered Goh’s inquiry into the financial position of the company, said the judge. About US$132 million was owed to the company, its bunker licence got suspended, posing a threat to its profitability, and large sums totalling about US$15.6 million were owed to Maybank while the licence was suspended.

“The financial position of the company was suspect, and should have primed the defendant to look further and obtain a picture of the true state of the affairs of the company and monitor what was happening within it. That was his duty as a director,” said Justice Abdullah.

He said if Goh had performed his duties, transactions and drawdowns that caused loss to the company would not have been carried out.

While Goh pointed to certain information within the company to say there was enough basis to be satisfied or not probe further, the judge rejected this.

An honest and reasonably diligent director would have persisted and probed further,” he said.

Goh also argued that the banks had breached their duties to the company, but the judge found this “speculative” and a separate issue from Goh’s liability.

The judge found that relief under the Companies Act was not applicable to Goh, as that provision requires that the court finds the person had acted “honestly and reasonably”.

“At the very least, the circumstances precluded the conclusion that the defendant had acted reasonably,” said Justice Abdullah.

He allowed the full extent of losses claimed by the company, measuring the breach from Feb 7, 2018 and encompassing the whole amount of the drawdowns during June to July 2019, for a total of US$146,047,099.60, and the relevant interest claimed.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/goh-jin-hian-liable-146-million-inter-pacific-petroleum-director-4105606

And let’s not forget, he’s pleaded “not guilty” to a charge of false trading in his role as former CEO of New Silkroutes Group last September.

Ex-ST wimmin promoting ex-PM’s book?

Here’s a review of Goh Cock Chok Tong book that had me want to go out to buy it: https://berthahenson.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/how-the-holy-goh-got-on-with-the-father-and-the-son/?fbclid=IwAR2rBVxPronTL3UwADIsc_B3d8B4cCCqNsUgolJr9jAh715PbAlkLtMReW8

Until I remembered that Bertha Henson wanted to be a Sith Lord (in this case editor of ST). But she didn’t get her wish, and this Imperial Stormtrooper general (Paper arm) moved on, and tried to be a Jedi by criticising ST. My dogs despise her for biting the hand that fed her well. To be fair, she’s not the only one liddat

— Feeling free to bite hand that once fed him

— “Fake news: Just make mainstream media more credible”

— ST team in exile in SCMP (including Yaacob’s sis who was ST’s deputy editor) in HK

They were

enablers of a juggernaut. When they were regularly paid 30 pieces of silver serious sums of money, they never doubted that they were working for truth, justice, the S’pore way and Harry. But when the money stopped, they all had Damascene conversions, or so it seems. Humbug?

This brings me ex-deputy editor of ST (sis of retired minister and wife of  Cherian George, advocate of freedom of the media). She did a fawning, balls-carrying interview of Cock Chok Tong: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/2171489/lee-kuan-yews-sentosa-nudist-colony-idea-being-seat-warmer-and. Brown nosing habits are hard to shake off?

 

Don’t tell us, tell ex-PM, Indranee Rajah

Those were my tots when I read in the construction, nation-building CNA

Stop thinking of people in terms of social class or income: Indranee Rajah

What can Singaporeans do to help bridge the gap between social classes? For Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, the answer is very simple: Think of people as people.

She was responding to a question from a participant at a dialogue and closed-door screening of the Channel NewsAsia documentary “Regardless of Class” on Monday (Oct 29). The documentary explores the class divide in Singapore and how it affects society.

Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/stop-thinking-of-people-in-terms-of-social-class-or-income-10876762

I mean who was the cock that tried to sabo the PAP govt when it was trying to showcase why S’poreans should be happy with the PAP by saying around the time of the National Day celebrations

that those in the private sector earning less than $1m are “very mediocre people”. And that the PAP only chose ministers from the private sector if they were earning $1m or more.

Ex-PM’s money obsession causing PAP problems

Anyone using money to distinguish between “mediocre” and “not mediocre” people is thinking in terms “of people in terms of social class or income”.

Or is she trying to be a stand-up comic, like Tharman?

Tharman trying to tell jokes

— Tharman trying to tell jokes again?

— Property: Tharman trying to crack jokes again

—

 

Ex-PM’s money obsession causing PAP problems

Over the weekend I read

Finance, like law, is a profession that attracts a lot of reasonably intelligent, hard-working people who rather like money. People like me. Most of us are not really suited to it, though, and that makes for a lot of unhappy careers. The financial crisis saved me from that, and I am grateful.

Robert Armstrong FT’s chief editorial writer and was a hedgie analyst 10 yrs ago

This reminded me of

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

1 Timothy 6:10

Then today, I read

Factually, the government website, has debunked online falsehoods on PM’s and Ministers’ pay. I shall use this opportunity to debunk public perception that I am paid a ministerial salary.

(GCT on FB)

This then reminded me that GCT poured shit and piss on the PAP’s NatDay celebrations with his comment that those in the private sector earning less than $1m are “very mediocre people”. And that the PAP only chose ministers from the private sector if they were earning $1m or more. OK, OK, he later did say that salary was not the “starting point” when the PAP chose $1m ministers.

The silence from the present cabinet is deafening.

Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole tell me that they hear that he was “ordered” to release the transcript of what he said and clarify that salary was not a factor when the PAP chose ministers.

Much good this did. I didn’t start commenting on his comments until I read the transcript. I mean TOC, TRE and The Indians Idiots are the cybernuts what ST is to the PAPpies.

And if salary was not the “starting point” when the PAP chose $1m ministers, why talk so much about money?

Whatever, based on his comments about ministerial salaries over the yrs, I get the sense that he is obsessed about money. Fault of wife? Remember she said $600,000 salary was “Peanuts”. Or could it be because he came from a very poor family?

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

1 Timothy 6:10

I’m not the only one not impressed  with the transcript he released. Here’s something a FBer posted at the time

There was a clarification? I thought it’s the just the transcript.

Or did he think the transcript gave him a context? I’ve read it, the points remain that his idea of meritocracy is how much money one can make.

His main point, which is where the money is going to come from, is correct, but he is also forgetting that if people are taxed more, then what politicians earn come even under greater scrutiny.

Certainly, I am happy to pay Scandinavian level taxes if it means free healthcare for the elderly and free education, but not if it goes to enriching politicians.

That said, and it goes back to what I said about the Ben Davis saga, our Government need to be more innovative when it comes to their pay package. Using an indicator based on economy sends a strong signal that nothing else matters, that running a country is only about the economy.

But it’s not.

Shouldn’t a minister in charge of transportation, for example, be pegged against how efficiently our transport systems run?

Shouldn’t a minister of social and family development be pegged with how many families move out of poverty each year?

Shouldn’t a minister of health be pegged to how more people are getting proper healthcare and the overall health of the nation?

If a minister does a good job at his portfolio, based on tangible KPIs on the aspect of society he or she looks after, I’d be happy to even pay them $10m, much less $1m. So maybe it can be flexi-wage, where they get a lower monthly salary but a much higher bonus payout if they perform well for example.

There are so many ways we can attract private sector talent, especially today when so many bright minds join start-ups for very little money in the hope of a big pay-out later.

I agree that we do need to pay our ministers well – but how that pay comes about can be far more creative than the way it is currently structured.

Related posts

What PM, PAP can learn from very rich tech entrepreneur

When being a minister turns from a calling into a job for life

New Hope: Time to make robots PAP ministers?

 

New Hope: Time to make robots PAP ministers?

Goh Chok Tong’s comment that those in the private sector earning less than $1m are “very mediocre people” reminded me that he’s a very robotic person. While by the standards of the 3G and 4G PAP leaders, this roboticness doesn’t stand out, by the standards of the Old Guard and other 2G leaders (Think Dhanabalan or even Tony Tan), his robot-like attributes stood out like a sore thumb.

This reminded me of an article suggesting that we should have robot politicians

A poll of British consumers conducted by software firm OpenText found that one in four Brits think robots would do a better job than humans as politicians. Years ago, The Muppet Show ran a segment mocking politicians for their stereotypical robotic behaviour. Last April a robot was nominated to run to be Tokyo’s mayor, promising fair and balanced representation.

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/31/is-it-time-to-automate-politicians

(Another extract of the end of this piece.)

Think of the money we can save, having a robot replace Kee Chiu

PAP: Chinese defecate in public, Indians clean up

Kidding me? Kee Chui potential PM? He from RI?

Or VivianB:  VivianB who sneered at the elderly poor

Or Tharman and other wannabe stand-up comics:Tharman joking again? Or trying to BS us?

And robots don’t have sisters and brothers with grudges, or ambitious sister-in-laws or nephews.

As promised another extract from Economist article

[R]obot-politicians can do at exponential speed and scale, from shaking hands and kissing babies to handling the fundraising “robocalls” that frustrate American voters. A robot could take over every politician’s favourite task of cutting ribbons to inaugurate new buildings. We already cede decision-making responsibility on health and finances to algorithms, why not with voting? An automated democracy could replace both politicians and ballot boxes.

That may be extreme. Yet comical though it sounds, parts of our politics has already been technified. Consider reach. Both Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and the French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, beamed holograms of themselves to speak to several groups of thousands of people simultaneously. Next, there’s the message. In America’s 2016 election, candidates used social-media advertising to target different voters with different messages.

The growing automation of our government is no longer sci-fi. Instead, it’s a reality we are only beginning to grasp. So to the question, can we replace politicians with robots? The answer is a soft yes.

Big data and artificial intelligence allow us to understand public issues better and faster. They may be able to identify the most effective approaches to solving problems, just as algorithms became world champions of chess and Go. Predictive analytics is used to identify potential criminals or romantic partners. It can predict voting habits from Facebook likes (country music lovers in America are more likely to be Republican, while Bob Marley fans are more likely to lean Democrat, and so on).

Why TJS never got invited for tea and biscuits

(As I recently wrote about an RI boy, I tot I might as well write about another RI boy, especially one very, very proud to be from RI. So proud that it annoyed me.)

The JBJ Memorial event five weeks to the day yesterday (Saturday), entitled “Heroes in Our Hearts”, turned out to be more than a tribute to JBJ. What has gone uncommented (until now) is that a speech there solved a puzzle.

During the May GE campaign, Tan Jee Say told us that he had been told when he was a civil servant (in the early 1980s presumably?) that the PAP had considered him as a possible candidate-MP. But nothing happened and he never heard about the matter again. (Three other scholars born in the same year as him, 1954, Teo Chee Hean (in 1992), Lim Hng Kiang (in 1991) and George Yeo (in 1988) were tapped to become MPs and ministers.)

During the same election, his ex-boss, Goh Chok Tong, said that TJS was not gd enough to be a Permanent Secretary, and so he left government service.  TJS denies this. More details.

TJS’s speech at the JBJ Memorial tells us that he openly cheered in the 80s for JBJ at JBJ’s public appearances and rallies.

That he openly showed his support for a non-establishment figure and knowing the views that the PM of the day, one LKY, held abt JBJ, it is very clear (to me at least) why TJS was never invited to a tea-party, and why he couldn’t ever be a Permanent Secretary. He was “unsound”, likely to be unreliable when the call came to close ranks against the “enemies of the state”, and other trouble makers.

That he rose to be the Principal Private Secretary of the then Deputy Prime Minister (and PM in waiting), despite such open support for JBJ, speaks well of the system of meritocracy in the admin service in the 1980s, and how decent a man Goh Chok Tong was. (Regular readers will know I am usually no fan of GCT or of his policies.) 

Yes, yes, I know that a cynic should say that there is only TJS’s word that he attended and cheered at JBJ’s rallies. But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt even though I know people who were his senior in Morgan Grenfell Asia in 1991, who are annoyed that he claimed the credit for MGA winning the privatisation mandate from SingTel, three months after he joined MGA: “He makes S’pore sound like Indonesia”; “MGA had been cultivating SingTel for years”; and “What else did he win?”.

(Reminding me of what George Orwell in All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays wrote,  “A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.” A good reminder why not to boast.)

My one criticism of his speech is that the speech came across as more about TJS* than about JBJ. But then brave men often have big egos, witness JBJ.

TJS is brave, not because of what he said he did 27 odd years ago, but because at age 57, he decided to do something very different and difficult, and which doesn’t pay well most of the time (he is out-of-pocket by at least S$127,000: enter politics on the side that always gets thrashed badly, like our national teams in sepak takraw, weightlifting, archery, basketball, footie, golf, dragon boat,  petanque, shooting, fencing and silat.

At the very least, even if he is an opportunist, he loves a challenge like Ulysses in Tennyson’s poem of that name which ends:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are—

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

What the poem does not tell us is that Ulysses was drowned when a wave hit his ship and he was washed overhead. Heroes do not have the luxury of dying peacefully in their beds.

Finally, if anyone knows when he joined and left Standard Chartered, his designation(s) there, or whether he was in investment banking, fund management, or whatever there, please drop me an email. I know nothing of this period except that he was in StanChart. Likewise for his stint in Peregrine. BTW, interestingly, between 1991- 1997, he worked for  three different firms. I only worked for one.  

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*It reminded me of LKY’s eulogy of Dr Goh Keng Swee. There was a credible rumour that some members of Dr Goh’s family were upset that the speech seemed more abt LKY than Dr Goh.

What SM should say have said abt Jee Say

So “Let’s be civil” Goh has kicked Tan Jee Say in the balls , making Jee Say sad.

I don’t know the truth about why the latter resigned, but was it necessary for SM to say that Jee Say was not gd enough to be a Permanent Secretary and so Jee Say left?  True Jee Say and the SDP are getting a lot of mileage that he was a senior aide of Goh.

But against that 20 years have passed. If Jee Say had stood for elections say five years after he resigned, then it would be fair for Goh to say that he wasn’t good enough to get promoted. Taz politics.

But as 20 years have passed, the decent (and devasting) thing for Goh to have said was, “That was a long time ago, his being my PPS. Mr Tan Jee Say should be judged by what he has done since then. What is his track record as fund manager, investment adviser or investor.

‘And he shld also be judged by the quality of his arguments. Not the fact that he was my senior aide 20 yrs ago.”

Anyway, this incident further confirms my view that Goh Chok Tong should never have been prime minister. And disproves the theory that serious money attracts gd people into politics.