Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore
“Sir, I had not intended to intervene in any debate. But I was doing physiotherapy just now and reading the newspapers and I thought I should bring the House back to earth. Mr Rajaratnam had great virtues in the midst of despondency after a series of race riots when we were thrown out during Independence.”
“A point of clarification, Sir. The Member has compared Singapore against Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. Can I ask him if he considers Singapore's population to resource ratio equal to Denmark, Switzerland and Finland?”
“The Member has not answered my question. Is he saying that we are comparing apples with apples? Is he saying that the system of government in Finland, Denmark and Switzerland can bring them from First World to a superpower? Can they do that?”
“I am putting a simple question and ask for his clarification. He has compared Singapore as if it were a Denmark, a Switzerland or a Finland. Their system, their governments, never produced the kind of transformation that we have had, and their system and their governments have a broader base, and can afford a mediocre government.”
“At the end of the day, that will be the same for the Malays, for the Indians and for all the others. S Rajaratnam was aiming for the stars. I went along with him with the pledge, and we must try to live up to the pledge. But to say, let us forget race, language, religion, culture, that is not doable.”
“So there is a wide range of options open and it depends on your judgment on the quality of the people you appoint, and also what is the objective of appointing people to these positions, whether you want them to stay effectively until retirement, which means you have to avoid appointing good people to these positions early which is, I thi…”
The complete record
Every one of 506 lines we hold for Lee Kuan Yew, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 5 of 11.
“I do not even know the number. Later HPL sent a form, addressed to me at Oxley Road. I never saw it. My wife took it, handed it to her lawyer, Miss Kwa Kim Li of Lee & Lee, to attend to. When the contract was signed, Lee & Lee lodged a caveat in the Registry of Titles and the purchase price and my name as purchaser was on that caveat. My wife had no further dealings with HPL and all correspondence between Lee & Lee were with HPL's solicitors. The purchase of Scotts 28 six months later had nothing to do with my brother Dr Lee Suan Yew. In October 1995, my wife learnt that Mrs Pamelia Lee and Miss Kwa Kim Li of Lee & Lee had booked units in another HPL development called Scotts 28. She decided to book one through Kwa Kim Li, relying on the judgments of two shrewd buyers, Pamelia Lee and Kwa Kim Li, and that the price would be reasonable and the finish would be of good quality. She was told a twentieth floor unit, above those booked by these two, was available with a correspondingly higher price. Unlike Nassim Jade, where she had in mind the distant possibility of our living in it one day, Scotts 28 was bought simply for investment, to let out. So she agreed to buy at level twentieth floor, which is popular with foreigners. There was no mention of any discount and indeed Miss Kwa Kim Li was not aware of any discount, as DPM has read from the letter by Miss Kwa Kim Li. She only learnt of the 5% discount in April this year, after DPM asked her to inquire from HPL. My wife decided to buy this unit in our joint names, so the option and the agreement were in our joint names. And Lee & Lee lodged the usual caveat in the Land Registry, giving our joint names and the price. At no stage did my wife or I feel that we were doing anything irregular or improper.”
“My wife chose the adjoining flat on the same floor. I am saying this because I have had a discussion with several older Members of the PAP, and my natural instinct is to come out and say, "I take you on the argument." But Mr Dhanabalan told me it is better to let people know why I actually bought it. So I told my wife, better tell people why we actually bought it. She had in mind our possible future need for a flat after seeing what has happened to my father when he could no longer cope with the stairs and the steps in my old-style three-level bungalow home at Oxley Road, where my bedroom and sitting room are at one level, my dining room and my father's bedroom are at another level, and the kitchen is at a third level, and he had suffered fractures on his arms and legs in the last four to one-and-a-half years when he repeatedly fell. So he had to move, most unhappily, to my brother's home (Dr Lee Suan Yew), where he has a bedroom, a toilet, the dining room and the sitting rooms, all on the same level, and he has not fallen. Of course, this is a distant future consideration, assuming that I reach 93, which is my father's age. Later she told me she had booked the flat in my name because I did not have a property in my name alone and that this would enable us to arrange our assets to benefit from the tax laws. I know some MPs feel unhappy when I showed them my draft. They say that is very bad, that is tax evasion. Not at all; it is the business of lawyers and accountants to advise their clients on how to deploy their assets in a way that makes the maximum use of the tax laws. The properties she had bought previously were in her name and some were in our joint names. So I agreed. And that was the first time I knew I was buying some property in Nassim Jade.”
“She visited HPL's office with Mrs Pamelia Lee and chose a flat next to my brother's, relying on Pamelia Lee's judgment that she would have chosen a good aspect or a good prospect. Mr Thio Gim Hock of HPL, in the presence of Mrs Pamelia Lee, quoted her a lump sum price, saying it was a discounted price, did not mention any discount percentages or the undiscounted price. My wife knew that discounts meant little because developers regularly give discounts on their listed prices. Having acted as a lawyer for developers, she knew the way they marketed and their practice was to quote a high listed price, and give discounts which they vary according to the buyers and whether the market was going up or down. For the developer to have to lower the listed price because of poor sales would have made his earlier buyers feel cheated. Therefore she focused on the actual price, not the discount, as she always does. She agreed to it without bargaining, assuming that it was more or less what my brother Dr Lee has paid for their adjacent flat, because when the price was quoted Mrs Pamelia Lee was with her. So she assumed that she would not be given a price which would be fantastically above Mrs Pamelia Lee's. My wife was also confident that Mrs Pamelia Lee would have investigated condominium prices in that area and found it reasonable. She knew also that the wife of Mr Tan Kok Quan, a lawyer in Lee & Lee, where she was a partner, had bought, and was living in one of the flats in HPL's Four Seasons Park and she had heard good reports of its workmanship and finishes. And this report of good workmanship and good finishes was confirmed by one of her other friends who had bought a flat in Four Seasons Park. Pamelia Lee had chosen a flat on the second floor.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, I was recovering from my second angioplasty and stent operation when this issue of my purchases of two properties from HPL arose. At that time, I was under three different medications and was somewhat fragile. Literally fragile as those on three blood thinners can attest. I could not meet the press. So I issued, the next best thing, press statements. The press statement is not me. It is just a few words. It is not satisfactory because I have to meet you in person, tell you the facts and give you an opportunity to decide whether you think I have become a different person. And this is my first opportunity to do so. I am not in my best form because it is only nine weeks since my stent operation and my doctors have said, keep the heart rates steady in case the wires are not completely covered. But I feel fine and I intend to give you as robust an explanation in as robust a manner as you would expect of me. There is also the problem of jet lag. I am still on New York time. But I think, factor all that in, you will find that I am not as much as I used to be. Let me state the circumstances I, or rather my wife, came to buy one unit each at Nassim Jade and Scotts 28, developed by HPL. In April 1995, my brother, Dr Lee Suan Yew, rang up my wife. She was out. She returned the call. My brother's wife, Mrs Pamelia Lee took the call and told her about a small development called Nassim Jade in Nassim Road. My wife had wanted to buy a property for some time and she had been to see some bungalows (three bungalows) that were on the market but did not like them. So she decided to consider an apartment.”
“I believe we must expect this to continue and we will do well every time we read it, and after a while, I believe also that our neighbours have taken note of what has happened, as indeed you can see from the newspapers, editorials from Bangkok, from Jakarta, that when William Safire was invited to Singapore for an open debate, he chose not to come. So was Dr Crane. I had always been under the impression that they were the ones who were for an exchange of views. Who did they want to convince? Williams College students about the future of Singapore? Or Singaporeans about the future of Singapore? That is what is at stake. So let us not forget that in the midst of this debate, we are talking about our future. We are not interested really in how America is run, but we are profoundly interested in whether we are making the right steps forward for ourselves. I believe it is not in our interest to have it said that our judges are compliant and corrupt. [Applause]. ADJOURNMENT OF DEBATE”
“The President cannot appoint 17 or 18 Ambassadors because the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has decided to hold all appointments hostage until there is a cut in certain items which he desires. So the PLO is unable to get $500 million. This is from the latest news I was listening to on BBC at lunch time. They have to close down their offices. Every day is a tussle between American sumo wrestlers in the legislative arena. America has survived on that contention. But I suggest to this House that we do a lot better because we are differently constituted. I am convinced that at the end of 10 years we will be doing a lot better despite all the troubles we will get from Asiawatch, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, or the Harvard Law School giving a postal address for Francis Seow. You may impress Americans with that postal address, but you have not changed the nature of Francis Seow and who he is and what he is with Singaporeans. So I have noted with great interest that Dr Chee distanced himself with Francis Seow. He did not go on with him on the same platform. He wanted to keep his distance. He did not want to be treated like Francis Seow. He knows that that carries no credits, no votes, in Singapore. If Francis Seow were a Nelson Mandela, how different it would be. We have invited him, the Prime Minister in his letter through the Ambassador, to come back. We want him back, face his charges, maximum a few months' jail. A fighter for freedom to change the whole system, intimidated by a few months' jail, which will make him into a martyr and rally the masses behind him to overthrow the system? Instead, he sends little letters to the press from the safety and refuge of America.”
“Or whether our more sedate but truthful presentation of news and facts, without stirring up emotions, leads to more rational conclusions about what we should do for ourselves in the future. If we were a crook outfit, a rogue outfit, if in fact the Chief Justice is a crony of mine and all the Judges are his cronies who will do his bidding, would we bring this debate into this House and air it? We will be hiding in a corner. But the appointments made can bear scrutiny. What have we to be ashamed of? I am not ashamed of Singapore. I am not ashamed for having arrested Francis Seow or sanctioning his arrest under ISA to discover and confirm that an American diplomat had egged him on to get a group of lawyers to contest the elections and get into Parliament and break up the monopoly of the PAP. He did that in the Philippines. He proudly told our Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials how he helped Mrs Aquino to get into power. Good luck to the Philippines and Mrs Aquino, but do not do this in Singapore. We have managed our own business. We have not done so badly. We are making progress. Please leave us alone. Our people are not stupid. When they vote, they know that if they vote wrongly, and they really vote out the PAP Government and vote in the Opposition, what would happen to them. I think it is perfectly legitimate for the PAP Government to say the choice is yours. But they want us to follow their system where every step you take is contested and contended. The US President cannot pass his Budget because the House of Representatives says they want to cut some $350 billion to trim the Budget.”
“They argue, they fight, they contend. They have marches where the blacks gathered in Washington, one million strong, and demand justice for all the horrors inflicted upon the blacks for hundreds of years. That is democracy. We prefer to approach our problems in a different way. We have our difficulties. We have our minorities who lag behind. We do not deny it. But our solution is to solve it in a realistic way, not by argument and debate. We will end up in riots. If Utusan Melayu and Lianhe Zaobao everyday agitate for their particular cause, would we be here to debate and discuss these things with such academic calm? Those of you too young should look at the footage of film clips, long before video, of how a picture of a Dutch girl who had been converted into Islam, sent by a British judge to a convent pending a custody suit between the adopted mother and real mother, a Dutch woman and a Malay woman, caused a riot in which the Singapore Police Force, which was largely Malays, was inert for 72 hours, and British troops had to come down from Malaya to restore law and order. But we are authoritarian. When we do this, we are like the dictatorships, just slightly better. As Dr Chee says, we are not as bad as the Soviet Union. I am grateful. They are not going to retreat because they want us to change. If we are going to change for the better, I would say we would be stupid to stay put. Will we change for the better? As the Prime Minister said in his National Day Rally speech, let us give 10 years. In fact, we may know even earlier, in five years, whether the course taken by the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, of a free rambunctious press where anything goes, brings about enlightenment and progress.”
“So they went on a vendetta and a crusade. They got the American Bar Association of the City of New York to come here and did a cursory talk around and came out with a report. So we are intimidated? Now, the SDP, through its Secretary General, Dr Chee Soon Juan, has endorsed these allegations, cleverly using - so he thought - what Francis Seow and Christopher Lingle said at the alternative panel discussion at Williams College. He did not utter these words. He just happened to be present. But he denied other things which were untrue like chewing gum with a $1,000 fine or smoking marijuana carrying the death penalty. That is untrue. There is a Latin tag which says expressio unius est exclusio alterius. When you list out the items which you say are untrue, by implication, all the others are true, because you have brought your mind to bear on it. The trouble with him is that he is too clever by half. He always forgets what he said in his last letter. But it is not Dr Chee we are beating up. We are beating up, in the argument, the people who want to make use of him. Can he change this system? Is he ever likely to get an alternative group of men to put forward to Singapore a shadow cabinet that the people could vote in? Is anybody of any quality joining him since his hunger strike in 1993? Who then are we bugging? American Human Rights groups, the American media who think that we ought to change. We have succeeded by the free market system which they espoused. We have benefitted from the system of laws, the stability which they have ensured. Therefore, we must be the ideal development country. We should not deviate and form a different kind of system. They want the whole of Asia, and eventually the whole of the world, to be ideal societies like them.”
“They have maintained the high standards established by the few who had accepted appointment when salaries were inadequate, and who had been holding the fort until salary changes made it possible to get larger numbers of practising lawyers to accept appointments. I may add that rather than appoint lawyers who were not amongst the best at the Bar, I deliberately left the vacancies on the Supreme Court Bench unfilled. Because it was not in my nature and I knew it would be unwise to fill up those seats with inadequate men. They were lifetime appointments. I am happy to observe that our Judges have not been intimidated by the baseless attacks on their integrity from the foreign media, from doing what their conscience and the law requires of them as Judges. Their conduct of cases in open court, their judgments published for the record, their character all bear the closest scrutiny. If it was nonsensical, absurd, preposterous, if Dr Lingle had not committed contempt of court and the IHT had been wrongly convicted, they would have torn the judgments to strips. There were arguments in open court on both sides by the Attorney-General and lawyers amongst the best from the Singapore Bar and they could have brought in Queen's Counsel from London. And if the judgments could not justify the findings, then the judgments would have been torn to strips. So what is all this about? From time to time since 1987, American Human Rights groups, like Asiawatch and through Asiawatch, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, have made baseless and scurrilous allegations that our judiciary is not independent. It all started in 1987 over the Marxist conspirators' arrest, when we were not intimidated by their attacks on us for using the Internal Security Act. We refused to yield.”
“Otherwise, the World Economic Forum and PERC would not have come to that conclusion. They canvass, they poll, they meet lawyers, they meet businessmen, to find out whether they have got confidence in the system. The Chief Justice has not given up his Chairmanship of OCBC in order to debase himself and become a hatchet man for the Government. And in any case, as I have said, I was always my own hatchet man. I have never needed somebody to carry my scabbard for me. He has discharged the duties of his office with distinction, and he has helped to select for the Supreme Court some of the best and most respected members of the Bar. All those connected with the administration of justice, the legal officers, members of the Bar and there are now over 2,500 members, lawyers in actual practice, the judges, the media, meaning our media and indeed even the foreign media, although they may not wish to report this, watch the Leeson case. When he attacked Singapore and said that he did not want to be extradited because he would not get a fair trial, the International Herald Tribune and the Asian Wall Street Journal plastered it on the front page. When Leeson decided that he would face trial in Singapore and said he apologised for saying that he never had confidence in the Singapore judiciary, not one word was published, not even in the inside pages. Freedom of the press! Are we intimidated? The Judges and Judicial Commissioners who have been appointed since November 1990 by the present Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Chief Justice have brought credit to the Singapore Bench.”
“Each Judge and Judicial Commissioner named two of themselves they considered the most suitable for promotion to this senior appointment, with a third name in reserve. The two who are appointed were the unanimous choices of all the judges. These appointments to the Supreme Court, and the changes the Chief Justice has made in the administration of the courts in the last five years, have raised the morale, efficiency and effectiveness of the officers of our courts. The transformation has been nothing short of remarkable. Our courts have been brought up to date with the use of Information Technology. The large backlog of cases when we used to wait four, five, six years for trial whilst they were on the court's list, has been cleared. The courts can now keep pace with the work volume of a financial centre like Singapore. The lawyers know the judiciary has come from the best amongst their ranks. They know who has been chosen. They have dealt with them either as partners or as adversaries in the courts. Now the lawyers complain of the pace of work in the courts and it is they who want time to catch up with their work, which is as it should be. These facts, Sir, have to be placed on the record. When Members read Human Rights groups in America, foreign correspondents who quote these Human Rights groups and their reports, or opposition parties seeking to attack the Government, by attacking the Judiciary, remember that they are out on a campaign to debase our system. They are not interested in investigating the truth. They are carrying out a campaign. Remember that the Singapore Chief Justice and Singapore's Judges on the Supreme Court have established reputations and enjoy the respect of the Bar.”
“From these discussions, he settled a list of 60 possibles, both from the Legal Service and the Bar. Within a year, before he became Chief Justice, he had shortlisted them to 20. He based his selection on the academic background of the person, what the market and the Bar assessed a man to be, and from his knowledge of and conversations with the person, including his appearance before him in the courts. He then sought out the views of each of the Judges and the Judicial Commissioners on the overall integrity, legal ability and likely "judicial temperament" of these persons. Then he sounded out the candidate as to whether he would be interested to have his name considered. From 1992, he refined the selection process by a quiet poll every 12 to 15 months. Each Judge and each Judicial Commissioner would list three lawyers in order of preference, for their competence in civil work and, separately, in a different list for competence in criminal work. The Judges had the advantage of close observation and interaction with those who appeared before them, and also from their personal knowledge of their peers when they were practising at the Bar. From these rankings, the Chief Justice obtained a rough assessment based on how many Judges and Judicial Commissioners nominated a particular candidate, and also a more precise points score, giving three points for a first place nomination, two for a second place nomination and one for a third. Then he assessed the suitability of each candidate in separate discussions. The Chief Justice used the same method to select the judges he recommended for appointment to the Court of Appeal.”
“It has brought to Singapore good returns from the MNCs, the OHQs, the banks, the financial institutions, and the flood of capital to buy up properties in Singapore. A country that has no rule of law, where the government acts capriciously is not a country wealthy men from other countries would sink money in in real estate. Sir, one of the difficulties of getting good men on the Supreme Court was the meagre salaries paid to judges compared to their earnings at the Bar. And it was only in recent years, after the Ministerial and Judicial salaries were revised, that it has been possible to fill the vacancies on the Supreme Court Bench with men and women of the right quality. Most of the appointments to the Bench have been from the private practice because many in the Government service had left when the pay was grossly inadequate. The Government is therefore presently revising Legal Service salaries so that the Service will be able to retain good officers who can, in due course, be promoted to the Bench, and we can maintain a balance between Judges and Judicial Commissioners promoted from the Legal Service and those appointed from private practice. How has the present Chief Justice filled up the vacancies? He has combed through the Bar list before he made recommendations to the Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, for 10 appointments as members of the Supreme Court Bench and eight as Judicial Commissioners. Some were appointed to the Supreme Court after a term as Judicial Commissioner. He has been careful, meticulous and thorough in his selections. When he became a Judge in July 1989, he met a large cross section of lawyers, leading members of the Bar. He found out who were the highly respected.”
“Settle for Francis Seow or Dr Chee Soon Juan - all you need do is to pay for his wife's postage to send the PhD thesis for correction. It is cheap. I have never needed the Courts to deal with troublesome problems which I can deal with by executive decision under the law. As Prime Minister, I reserved executive powers in the Internal Security Act and the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act, both inherited from British times, which I did not repeal, in order to be able to act against subversives or criminals like drug traffickers, against whom there is insufficient evidence for a court of law, without having recourse to the courts. In other words, I was my own carrier of a hatchet. I needed no hatchet man. All those who have dealt with me know that I have never flinched from going into a dark street on a dark night and if it happens to be a cul-de-sac, no outlet, either the gangster or I will come out alive. I have done this a few times. I am prepared to do this again. But when the Government, including me, takes a matter to court or when the Government is taken by private individuals to court, then the court must adjudicate upon the issues strictly on their merits and in accordance with the law. To have it otherwise is to lose us our standing and to lose us our status as an investment and financial centre. Fortune magazine is owned by Time Warner. We have restricted Time magazine for refusing to publish our replies. We are no favourites of Time Warner. But they carried out two independent surveys and they rated Singapore No. 1 investment centre. The interpretation of documents, of contracts in accordance with the law is crucial. Our reputation for the rule of law has been and is a valuable economic asset, part of our capital, although an intangible one.”
“6 million a year, to become a compliant Chief Justice for less than one-fifth the salary. He undertook the job as a matter of duty. Of course, money did not matter to him so much because he had inherited some properties from his parents and so was not deterred by the loss of income as a banker. However, Singapore cannot in future depend on finding a Chief Justice who happens to be good and bedecked with ability, integrity and judicial temperament who also happens to have inherited properties from his parents. Hence, I urged upon the Prime Minister the need for a fundamental revision of salaries from the President downwards, including the Chief Justice, the Judges and the civil servants, so that they are now earning 60% of their market earnings, of their peers in the private sector and, in the longer term, two-thirds of their market earnings. If Singapore is to remain squeaky clean when that revolutionary generation that threw me and my colleagues up cannot be reproduced, this is the only way. Face the alternatives and we will avoid the discomfiture of many other countries. We are not South Korea, we are not the Philippines, we are not Taiwan, we are not Thailand. They are the countries lauded by the American press as examples for us. I shudder to think that Singapore travels that road. Because unlike them, we do not have that hinterland to pay for such excesses. Every time your constituent asks you, why should the Minister be paid so much, tell him the Minister handles in billions of dollars. One signature from the Minister can make or break a company, not just a man. Therefore, he must be a man of that quality, that standing, that integrity. And if he is not worth 60% of what his private sector counterparts are getting, he should not be holding that job.”
“If he agreed, he would have to take up an appointment as Judge of the Supreme Court for a year before he took up his appointment as Chief Justice. Sir, as Chairman of OCBC, in the first six months of 1989 he earned $1.3 million from his salary, bonuses, and pay in lieu of leave. In other words, if he had stayed on in OCBC, he would have earned $2.6 million for the whole of 1989. The previous year, 1988, he had earned $1.3 million; because it was a less prosperous year for the bank with smaller bonuses. These were cash payments, excluding his entitlements to share options. As a Judge of the Supreme Court, he would receive, and, in fact, did receive, for the second six months of 1989 the princely sum of $0.177 million ($177,000) - less than one-seventh of his OCBC remuneration for the first six months. He considered it carefully for a month and told me that he would accept the appointment. He left OCBC and was appointed a Judge of Supreme Court on 1st July 1989. In September 1990 when Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin retired, I appointed him Chief Justice. Mr Yong Pung How's integrity, ability and standing were already well established amongst bankers both in Singapore and internationally. He is not an unknown person, like Mr Francis Seow. He is known to people who deal in billions of dollars of investments, as a man of honour. And in London, he is amongst London bankers a respected figure. In the last five years, he has earned the respect of the Bar, not as my friend, but as the Chief Justice. More than 200 of his judgements in the last five years have been published in our law reports. They are there for all to read and to judge. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that a man would give up his position as Chairman of our largest bank, earning more than $2.”
“In 1970 when he was already the head of one of the largest law firms in both countries (Singapore and Malaysia), Shook Lin and Bok, which had been started by his father, himself a lawyer, he decided to leave the law for banking. He became the head of the merchant bank, SIMBL, and later a Director and Vice-Chairman of our largest local bank, the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC). In April 1981 Dr Goh Keng Swee, then doing a special job for me to form the Government Investment Corporation (GIC) - and he had Mr Lim Kim San as the first Managing Director - decided to ask OCBC to lend Yong Pung How to the Government Investment Corporation as Managing Director. He had known him separately as a banker. Later he became also Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore because his competence was beyond doubt. As Chairman, GIC, I could see from his work that he was the same Yong Pung How I had known as a student: thorough, meticulous, and scrupulously fair in his presentation of the alternatives for investment projects before expressing his preferences. That is a very important quality for a judge. He had his preferences, but he presented the various options scrupulously and fairly, so that if the Board decided to take a different view from him they could pursue the merits, in detail, of the other options. In June 1983 he left both GIC and MAS and returned to OCBC as Chairman. Sir, in 1976 I had offered him an appointment as a Judge of the Supreme Court. He was then Vice-Chairman of OCBC. He declined. In 1989, when I asked him to consider the office of Chief Justice, telling him that this was my last appointment before my retirement, he asked for time to consider it.”
“I had planned to resign as Prime Minister at the end of 1990. One of my most important last appointments before I retired was to appoint the Chief Justice to succeed Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin. I weighed the merits of several candidates. I discussed the matter with all the Judges, separately. Each of the Judges listed for me the three best persons he considered suitable for the office, always excluding himself. With each Judge I separately went through the list of members of the Singapore Bar. I considered several outstanding lawyers from the Malaysian Bar, and looked at a few possibles elsewhere, including Hong Kong. I re-discussed the matter with the four judges who knew Mr Yong Pung How well. They all rated him the best of the possibles, excluding themselves. They were: Mr A P Rajah, Mr Punch Coomaraswamy, Mr L P Thean, and Mr S K Chan. Finally, there were four Judges of the Supreme Court who knew him and knew all the other Judges and knew all the members of the Bar who were suitable for the job. And without hesitation, they said that this man, in their view, was the most suitable. I finally decided on Yong Pung How because I was going to make an offer to a man who was at the top of the Singapore banking community. We were fellow students for three years at the Cambridge Law School from 1946 - 50 years ago. I knew his quality of work and his meticulous standards, and I knew them well. I had borrowed his lecture notes for my first term in 1946 in Cambridge because I had missed them. I had gone off to the London School of Economics and missed the first term when I decided to change from London to Cambridge. He returned and practised law both in Malaysia and Singapore for 20 years.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, from 1959 to 1990, I was responsible for appointing all Judges of the Supreme Court. Like all my other appointments throughout the Government, the statutory boards, the civil service, these Judges were appointed strictly on merit. The main attributes that I looked for were integrity, ability, qualifications and suitability for the job. If I had indulged in nepotism and cronyism, Singapore would not be what it is today, with a government, civil service, a police force, a whole structure of an establishment which is acknowledged, not just by businessmen but even by foreign correspondents who do not much favour us, to be 'squeaky clean' - in other words, honest, efficient and fair, where rules cannot be circumvented by gifts, and money politics does not exist. When appointments are for life, as with Judges, I take the utmost care to make sure that the men and women to be appointed do not fail for lack of character, integrity or independence of mind and judgement, for having been appointed for life, they will become serious problems with effects on our social development and our economic growth. Sir, I appointed the first Singaporean Chief Justice of Singapore in 1963. The person I appointed, Mr Justice Wee Chong Jin, was already a High Court Judge appointed by a previous Governor, and he held his appointment by Letters Patent from the British Queen. So his qualification to be a judge was not based on my criteria but on the Governor's criteria in the days before elected governments. I elevated him from the Bench to the Chief Justiceship. He stayed on as Chief Justice from 1963 to 1990. Many judgements went against the Government. He was never removed. He reached retirement age; I extended it twice because there was no suitable alternative.”
“I am in a position to judge. I say I am prepared to put my experience and my judgement against all the arguments that doubters can muster. In five to 10 years, when it works and Singapore has a good Government, this formula will be accepted as conventional wisdom. [Applause]. ADJOURNMENT OF DEBATE Resolved, "That the Debate be now adjourned." - [Mr Wong Kan Seng].”
“Do you not think it is worth a few million dollars a year to make sure that the Prime Minister can recruit such people and he has to get them from the private sector too because, as I have explained, if they all come from the public sector, they all have the same background, you will not have this ferment which is very necessary. Finally, let me put the issue very simply. I hope the Prime Minister also will not forget to mention about GST and HDB upgrading. You need boldness. Other cities go into decay and decline. But they have embarked on a plan, which I fully endorse, which will prevent the oldest estates from becoming slums. It is going to take more than a billion dollars each year which we are giving to our own citizens. They have to pay a small sum which is necessary because otherwise they will not understand the value of what is being given away. But we will have a sparkling city without slums. My generation got rid of the squatters. When the last squatter hut went, metaphorically, I gave every member of my team a gold medal. But they will do something better. You watch the housing estates in London or in New York, the slums, the tenements, and you know how horrifying it is. You are scared to go in. When you go in, you feel a chilling fear. We will not have that in Singapore, with this upgrading programme. You need powers of analysis, imagination, sense of reality, drive, and character. There can be no end to this argument. I am prepared to say to the people at large, (I read what Walter Woon says, "let us have a referendum.") are they in a position to judge? Is it within their range of experience? I have been through this life and had I lived a different life in Lee and Lee, I would never have this experience. Because I have gone through this, I say do it.”
“" Of course, it is novel to have an industrial park in Suzhou and it may fail, but not if we are determined that it will not fail. When it succeeds, and the first signs can be seen in five years, although it may not be completed for 10, 15 years, then we have all the cities of China open to us. I ask Mr Stephen Lee in private enterprise, supposing I was doing this as part of Kissinger Associates or Lee & Lee, what is my fee? You are going to begrudge $5 million extra to the Prime Minister who has got to look for new and younger Lim Kim Sans, Goh Keng Swees, Hon Sui Sens? He has got to find them, not every member of his team. But if he has not got such people in his team, he is in trouble. He will not be able to produce or deliver. We will succeed in Suzhou. We will be able to do something, I cannot say of the same scale, but we will do something in Vietnam, either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, just as we have done for Bangalore and for Batam. I think I should allow the Prime Minister to blow the trumpet of his own team, but I have watched and I know they deserve to have their trumpets blown. If that IPO of Telecom had not had ministerial direction, we would have lost at least $2 billion in that first issue. Ministerial intervention and hard-headed minds, with very good grasp of figures, saw through all the complex data which our financial advisers gave us, and said, no, we will have this price. We will have it issued to the public of Singapore, maybe one million, maybe 1 1/2 million, and the strike price was eventually twice what the financial experts recommended. You give the Ministers 1% of that, the difference is $2 1/4 billion. Can you calculate that?”
“I will say this, if we did not have the entrepreneurs, we would not be here and you would not be a lawyer, leading a quiet happy life. Look at all the housing estates. Public housing in Singapore is not an apology for slums. You go to Britain, you go to America, and vandalism and crime. Have you ever asked why it is different? Because from my own experience, as I went around on constituency tours in 1962 and 1963, I discovered there were grassroots organisations, kompang groups, Muslim mutual fund groups, clan associations, retailers associations. I organised them and I made them community centres' management committees and they ran the place for themselves, for their communities. From them, I formed Citizens Consultative Committees and altered the face of Singapore. Then, as we moved into the housing estates, the same experience, I said, "Start zone committees, residents' committees, every five, 10 blocks." So there is a nervous system of human beings transmitting messages, getting people together so that they know they are a community and not just anonymous individuals who shut their flat doors and live their own private lives. On my present contribution, this one I am going to be cautious, because the results will be another five to 10 years, but I think we are on the right track. If we do not go regional and sprout the second wing, our destiny will pass us by. Not everybody will be winning. But if we are careful, I think four out of five or eight out of ten will be winners, because the region will grow and we can grow with it. Civil servants work this out? No. You need somebody with the dare and the insight and say, "Look, this has to be done.”
“At each salary increase, I pushed something into CPF and built up the home-ownership programme that today gives 91% to 92% who own their homes, which are going up in value year by year because the infrastructure is getting better, the economy is getting better and they are rising with it. So you can sell one 5-room flat in Singapore and buy two bungalows in Perth. But before you do that, remember that your 5-room flat will go up in price but your two bungalows there will be empty and will go down in price. I take this as a matter of fact, but things have to be done which are unpleasant. I changed the acquisition laws and cleared off compensation for sea frontages so that we can reclaim the land. Then we have got East Coast Parkway. Fire sites, I reclaimed and acquired the right to acquire as of occupied status. It was Robin Hood, but I succeeded in giving everybody their own home. Of course, it is not me alone, but the concepts, the planning, I make no bones. I took responsibility, and it has succeeded. I put Medisave in place. I faced opposition in the Cabinet. Ministers came back from China and said, "Wonderful place. Everybody has got the same medical services and for free." I said, "Why do you believe this fairy tale?" I put 4%, 5% aside. I changed the Minister and I put Mr Goh Chok Tong as Minister for Health. I said, "Implement this." Today we have a viable national health service which avoids waste, no buffet syndrome, but guarantees adequate support for everybody, adequate health. The CPF also. Low interest rates, yes, but it has paid for all the infrastructure of our roads, bridges, airports, container ports, telecommunications, MRT, land reclamation. An ordinary group of people would think that up? No, Mr Chiam, you are wrong. You need entrepreneurs.”
“Without them, none of you would be enjoying life today in Singapore, including the reporters up there. I say this without any compunction. Who pays for all this? A Singapore economy which has been so finely tuned that it is able to take advantage of every opportunity that comes our way. You want to know entrepreneurship? Without Dr Goh Keng Swee there is no SAF. He is the SAF. 1965, we were suddenly independent. I said, "You were a corporal in the Singapore Volunteers. You know something about this. Better learn something more. Start it." He came back one day in February 1966, and he told me, "You know, we have got two battalions. They were in Malaysia for two years." More than half the battalions were now Malaysian Malays. So when one battalion came back from Sabah and the Malaysian Regiment refused to move out of their camp, they had to be put up at Farrer Park and they might have gone on riot or mutiny. So he came to see me and said, "You have made me as if I am a British general in charge of troops, half of whom are Italians." So we worked day and night to sort that out so that we have troops who are Singaporeans. Had we failed, I would not be here to tell you the story. We got the Israelis. We studied the Swiss. We got an SAF that nobody believes is just for show. But the most important entrepreneurship is really the structuring of Singapore. I was determined that before the soldier fights for Singapore, he must have something to fight for. Each family must own their home. So I set out right from the word go against any opposition from any quarter to build up the CPF.”
“He was a very quiet man, didn't make great speeches, but understands people and knows who can do what. He built up a good team. And from EDB sprang Trade Development Board (TDB), sprang DBS, because we had to build up the finances to help people start their industries. This is not administration doing a job. This is entrepreneurship on a political stage, on a national scale. We changed the complexion of Singapore. You can bring him back to life and reward him? In 1968, we were looking for ways to fill up our economy. Hon Sui Sen came to see me and said, "Let's take a chance. Change our foreign exchange regulations, release it." We were part of the sterling area. We had foreign exchange controls. He said, "Cancel it. Let's start the Asian Currency Unit. Collect all the dollars in the region, lend it to the world. We will be the link between New York closing and London opening." I listened intently. I said, "Proceed." We took the Bills through. Today, Singapore is the third largest foreign exchange trading centre in the world, next to New York and London. We have also got a budding futures trading exchange in Simex. We have great potential for growth and very high value added. Can you thank Hon Sui Sen? True, it wasn't all his ideas. But he had the good sense to listen to people with ideas. So a Dutch banker called Van Oenen who worked for Bank of America, who was a friend of Winsemius, said, "Try it." But we made it work. Now everybody wants to be a financial centre. We have overseas HQ. Kuala Lumpur immediately followed. We have no patent on it. They studied our laws, they up the stakes. So we have to keep on, innovating, moving ahead. You do that with a bunch of mediocrities? I make no apologies for collecting the most talented team I could find.”
“It is like blowing the trumpet of the Old Guards, but they are out of politics, maybe they deserve to have a few trumpets blown on their behalf. We had massive unemployment in 1959, more than 14%. Every year, 55,000-60,000 were born, 4% of our population growth. It was quite frightening, beyond the capability of Singapore to solve it. We knew industrialisation was the only way. Commerce could not solve it. The United Nations sent a team. Dr Winsemius was the leader. He recommended, "Yes, proceed." Dr Goh discussed it with him, and I discussed with Dr Goh and met him and said, "Let's try. Economic Development Board (EDB) and sell Singapore to America, to Europe, to Japan, as a manufacturing centre." Nobody had an EDB in the world. We formed one and we put in our brightest and our best. You want to know why you got good jobs, why you are doing well. Because every year, I allowed Dr Goh to have his pick of our top scholars. Of course, you make mistakes. Some are bright but they are not much use, lacking judgment. But within a couple of years, you know who has got judgment, sense of reality, imagination, leadership, dynamism plus the powers of analysis. They served Singapore well. We innovated. He created that organisation and he also built up Jurong, invested hundreds of millions of dollars, built roads, canals, filled up the earth, put in power, put in water. And for five years, it was empty, capital lying fallow. We watched it, wringing our hands. Because two years in Malaysia, the Finance Minister of Malaysia squeezed us and did not give us pioneer certificates. We nearly failed. But we did not fail. I gave Dr Goh the best Permanent Secretary we had - Hon Sui Sen - to help him. He became Chairman of EDB and he was a very good judge of people and persons.”
“And really we are arguing at the end of the day, whether by this formula which over 3-4 years will pay them $5 million more, the whole lot. What on earth are we arguing about? Except people get envious and they say, "They should really be sacrificing." If it were possible to carry on with the system, I will be in favour of carrying on with what I have been familiar with. But I know it is not possible. I have explained to you on my recent journey how I met three persons and immediately the changed circumstances became obvious to me. And I came back reinforced in my belief that the Prime Minister has to move and move quickly. Let me now take Members to a different angle to this problem. The PM is like the conductor of an orchestra. He has got to make great music. I think the best metaphor or simile for a Prime Minister is really a conductor. In other words, he has got to know something about each instrument, what sounds they make, where they come in. When I started my job, I didn't. But I had to learn it quickly. Home Affairs, Finance - you have to have stability, you have to have an economy going, you've got to have labour relations, education, national development, housing, the whole lot. You must know how to deploy your resources, not just money but manpower. So at any one time, a certain sector is the important one and I send my best Minister and my best Permanent Secretaries to support him, to make sure that that sector succeeds. And he has got to decide how he rewards them. He needs people in his team who are goal scorers. Any team to win must have sharp-shooters. In other words, in government, you must have ideas, you must create new concepts, build new institutions and be innovators, and not simply followers of orthodoxy. I give you a few examples from the past.”
“But I also believe, from my experience, that Muller and van Lennep are right that at 21, the man is fully developed and you can discover what he is, if you can test him arduously enough. But by 25 to 30, it is obvious what he is. You want men with good character, good minds, strong convictions. Without that, Singapore won't make it. The problem is: how do you do that when a booming economy is drawing them away? I do not think we can afford to be inhibited by conventional attitudes. Editors of our newspapers, when they were given copies of the White Paper, were surprised with the high earnings of the top men in the professions. My answer is, let us have these figures every year, independently verified -IRAS is not cooking them up. We know how much people are earning. Let us have them. Under oath of secrecy, a group of men independent of the Government and the IRAS can testify and verify. But what is it we are arguing about? The Government today - Cabinet Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Political Secretaries, everybody - costs $17 million a year. That is the cost. Working a GDP of nearly $90 billion, growing at 8%, which is $6 billion a year. You have wrong men here, it is a disaster. There is no way a Prime Minister can argue that any Minister can walk out of his Cabinet and get this kind of salary. Just as there was no way when I was a partner of a legal firm and we shared profits in a certain ratio, that any partner could walk out and get that share. In any team, like a football team, there are strikers who score the goals, but he needs his full-back, his wings, to feed the ball to him. And he has to decide how to deploy them.”
“They had two universities. Before the war, a thick layer of educated talent. So if you believe what American and British liberals used to say, then it ought to have flourished, but it did not. One man one vote led to the domination of the majority Sinhalese over the minority Tamils who were the active and intelligent fellows who worked hard and got themselves penalised and English was out. They were educated in English. Sinhalese was in. They got quotas into universities and now they have become fanatical Tigers. And the country will never be put together again. Somebody should have told them, change the system, loosen up or break off. Looking back, I think the Tunku was wise. I offered a loosening up of the system. He said, clean-cut, go your way. Had we stayed in, and I look at Colombo and Ceylon - Sri Lanka - changing names sometimes you deceive the gods but I do not think you are deceiving the people who live in them. This makes no big difference to the tragedy that is being enacted. They failed because they had weak or wrong leaders, like the Philippines. Singapore must get some of its best in each year's crop of graduates. When I say "best", I do not mean just academic results. When we interview a candidate, his 'O' levels, his 'A' levels, his university degree will tell you his powers of analysis. That is only one-third of the helicopter quality. You've then got to assess him for his sense of reality, his imagination, his leadership qualities, his dynamism. But mostest of all, his character and his motivation. Because the smarter the fellow is, the more wrongly he is motivated, the more harm he will do society.”
“My experience in Asia has led me to a different conclusion. To get good government, you must have good men in charge of government. What I have observed in the last 40 years is that even with a weak or poor system of government, but with good strong men in charge, you get passable government with decent progress. And, on the other hand, I have seen many ideal systems of government fail. Britain and France, between them, wrote up probably 80 constitutions for their different colonies. Nothing wrong with the constitutions, with the institutions, and the checks and balances. But the society did not have the men that could work those institutions, nor the men that respected those institutions. Because the esteem, the habits of obedience to a person because of his office, not because of the person, is something that takes generations to build into a people. But the leaders who inherited these constitutions were not equal to the job, and their countries failed and their systems collapsed in riots, in coups and in revolutions. Every time I hear people criticising us. When we are successful, they say we are sterile. When you are not successful, they say, look at the slums, look at the degradation, look at the filth. These are the wiseacres. We have got to live with the consequences of our actions and we are responsible for our own people. And we take the right decisions for them. You look at the old Philippines, the old Ceylon, the old East Pakistan and several others. And I have been to these countries and these places. When I went to Colombo for the first time in 1956, it was a better city than Singapore, because Singapore had three and a half years of Japanese occupation and Colombo was the HQ of Mountbatten's South-East Asia Command, and they had large sterling reserves.”
“To be a movement, to be a government, you must produce 15 men with the capability to run the government. I am not sure that a good MP can run a ministry. And I am not passing derogatory remarks because being a teacher and being a public speaker, especially in Teochew, it is a useful attribute. The PAP had plenty of them and they were very useful for campaigning. But at the end of the day, you have got to sit down, look at the file, masses of figures and you zero in on the critical issues and said, no, don't do that, do this. If this salary formula can draw out higher quality men into politics, whatever their motivations, I say, let us have them. It is better than the Opposition we now have. If we can get in opposition people of the calibre of the Nominated MPs, I say Singapore is better off. At least, I respect them. I can join in the argument. The only one that I find worth listening to is Mr Low Thia Khiang. The others, I switch off. And I have asked the press. They say, yes, they also switch off. It is very difficult to put your earphones on. It is a sad commentary on the standard of Singapore opposition politics. But at the heart of the question is: What makes a good government? That is the heart, the core of the question. Can you have a good government without good men in charge of government? American liberals believe, yes, you can. That you can have a good system of government with proper separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, plus checks and balances between them, like the regular tussle between Congress and the White House and between the House of Representatives and the Senate in the US, and there will be good government even if weak or not so good men win elections and take charge. That is their belief.”
“So it is crucial when you have tranquil Singapore that you recognise that politics demands that extra of a person, a commitment to people and to ideals. You are not just doing a job. This is a vocation. Not unlike the priesthood, you must feel for people, you must want to change society and make lives better. If I had not done that and got no satisfaction out of it, then I would have been a fool doing it because I could have gone back to Lee and Lee umpteen years ago and ridden the boom and sat back, probably at least as rich as my brother, or my two brothers - one is a doctor, another a lawyer. But why not? But somebody has to do this in order that they can prosper. And I am saying those who do this deserve not to be penalised or you will get nobody doing this. One journalist told me that there was some public concern that these higher salaries would change, and I quote him, "the name of the game and attract a different type of person with different motivations". It is possible that politically and socially uncommitted people from the higher management and professional brackets will be attracted to the idea of public office for this higher pay. I doubt it. But if it is so, and they can do better than the present Ministers, they should come out and offer themselves as the alternative. That would be good for Singapore. Far better to have a credible alternative to the PAP than the motley collection of lacklustre candidates put up by the Workers' Party, the SDP, the National Solidarity Party, the Singapore People's Party and so on and so on. None of them has ever assembled a team remotely credible as an alternative government. Yes, they have got Mr Low Thia Khiang. He is a good MP. He looks after his constituency. But you need more than a good MP.”
“Not heroic great schemes, but fine-tuning the traffic, get more underground tunnels, more parking spaces, underpasses, overpasses, expressways, flyovers, spaghetti junctions. In order what? To issue another few hundred or a few thousand COEs a year so that you can lower the price. But as the economy booms, when incomes are going up 6-8%, and COEs are increasing by 3%, I read all these clever little letters to the press of how it can be fixed. Stop double transfers, pay as you bid. How does that overcome a basic factor - incomes go up by 6-8%, demand goes up by 6-8%, supply goes up by 3%. All right, ALS - whole day. So it goes up by another 1/2% to 3 1/2%. Does that solve it? It can only be solved if we can make supply go up by 8%. But ingenious journalists and their editors in charge of the motoring page keep on writing fatuous pieces, taking up newspaper space. I am amazed. Highly intelligent people write complex mazes which show that they have not understood or refused to understand a simple equation of supply and demand. You know the hopes that are placed now on Electronic Road Pricing (ERP). This is not a heroic task. It is fiddling with credit cards you put on your windscreen. At the end of it all, what? Instead of paying for the COE upfront, you pay for it every time you drive down Orchard Road at the wrong time of the day. That is all. So maybe more people own cars which they are polishing in front of their house because they cannot travel at the time they want to travel, because other people who can afford more and are prepared to pay the high price are going down Orchard Road and Bras Basah Road will pay. But if that is what makes people happy, I say why not?”
“When it works, the World Bank will cite us again. You do not get cited because you are conventional, you follow other people. You become a model because you went against conventional wisdom and prove that they were wrong and you are right. And if we can keep honest, competent Government, never mind about its being brilliant, that is a tremendous achievement. Look at all the countries around us. They started off self-sacrificing revolutionaries - Vietnam, China - they went on long marches, their friends died, their families perished, their systems are not corrupt, their children are corrupt. We have not gone that way because we are realistic and we know adjustments have to be made. There is a price to be paid for hypocrisy. Ministers deal with billions of dollars in contracts. It is so easy. But when discovered, like Teh Cheang Wan, he preferred death because he lost everything. In this society, you will lose the respect of your friends and probably also your relatives. The fate of a country, when it is a matter of life and death, you throw up people who put personal considerations of safety and security and wealth aside. But that is when you have a revolutionary situation, when the whole people depend on the actions of a few. And I believe if such a situation recurs again, some Singaporeans will again emerge and rise to the occasion. But let us look at the problem today. What is the burning issue that excites the population? The price of COEs has cleared $100,000. Horror all round. Amazing. Does everybody expect to get a COE and buy a car? I believe they do, and there is nothing wrong with it. What is there needed of the Government?”
“It has a leavening effect. You need people with different backgrounds. If we keep to past practices, suppose we make no change, we just keep on tampering with the system, and every few years we come back here and have another long debate. I had them every three, four, five years, since 1972. Individuals in Singapore and corporate entities will flourish but Singapore will be depleted at its heart, at the core. Without this functioning core, you will not have your opportunities. The Prime Minister is already 53, the Deputy Prime Minister is 43. This team will not last two election terms without considerable infusions of fresh blood. Three Ministers have got two Ministries each, and the Ministers need 15 MOSs as backups, and they have not got it. They've only got seven. They need to be recruited in order that they learn on the job and become part of the team. If our solution, and I believe this one is a realistic solution and a sound one, works, in five to 10 years, the World Bank will again give us a citation, as they did this year. Let me read what they said: `Not surprisingly, Singapore, which is widely perceived to have the region's most competent and upright bureaucracy, pays its bureaucrats best.' When they use the word "bureaucracy", these are Americans, they mean Ministers too. They went on to say: `The monthly base salary of a full minister in Singapore ranges from US$13,800 to US$17,300, while a minister of state receives the equivalent of US$5,600 to US$7,600.' They are saying, yes, it works. I am pitting my judgement, after 40 years in politics, and I have been in this Chamber since 1955, against all the arguments on the other side. I said this is necessary for Singapore. I say face up to the facts, get a good generation in, get the best of this generation.”
“He asked me a very simple question. He said, "Do you want me to build houses or do you want me to be an employer of construction workers?" He said, "If you want flats, then I know how flats are built. You leave it to me. I will produce you the flats. If you ask me to hire workers, better look for another chairman." He said, "Let me explain. Every contractor has an elaborate supervisory system. He has his relatives, he has his trusted kepalas. They in turn have each a gang and they know each person in that group and each person has got to produce results to deserve the pay. If I hire them all, including the kepalas, who do not know each other, you will be lucky if you get half a flat for where you will have the flat." So I said, "Proceed." All these ties of kinship and personal obligations ensure success. So I overruled Ong Eng Guan and he built the flats. One block was in my constituency, opposite the former S.H.B. Union House, Cantonment Road. It is still there. If that had not gone up, I may not have been re-elected because Nanyang University and all the Chinese Middle School students targeted Tanjong Pagar to canvass against me. But they looked at the flat that was going up, they decided these little boys were not going to put up the flats, I was. That is why I came back to this House. Later, I persuaded him to take part in the 1963 General Elections and I made him Minister for National Development. On several occasions, his practical market approach to problem, made a difference to the success of projects. So it is important for the Prime Minister to find younger generation Lim Kim Sans, people with different backgrounds who will sit down, cross-fertilise ideas, improve and sometimes block a plan which is theoretically marvellous but will not work out in practice.”
“I believe the Prime Minister will be very fortunate if he can find one out of five Ministers who will come from the private sector. He keeps on trying. He never gives up. He keeps on making friends, he keeps on inviting them to tea sessions. They keep on saying, "Next time, please, when my children are grown up." They could not afford to accept the offers he has made to them to become MPs and Ministers of State or Ministers. Let me explain why it is important to have a mix of Ministers from different backgrounds in the Cabinet. I give my personal experience and example. Lim Kim San was and is a very practical man of business. He does not write speeches and books. Every time he has to make a speech, I know it is a tremendous effort and he tells me, "Must I make this speech?" I said, "Yes, you have to. This is your own constituency." But he has a lively practical mind. That is why SPH's profits have increased. He has gone in there, looked at the accounts, decided that the following changes would be made, costs would be cut, this would be amalgamated, and it has just jacked up profits, as I knew he would do. We made him Chairman of HDB in 1960 when we formed HDB. It was crucial, life and death. If we failed we would not be re-elected. This was the first year of office of the PAP. There were a lot of zealous idealists who wanted to put theories into practice. One of them, a member of the PAP Central Executive Committee, said, "We must be different from other builders. Other builders hire contractors who exploit workers. We will hire the workers direct, cut out the middlemen, they will be paid more and we will be model employers." Ong Eng Guan ordered Lim Kim San to hire the construction workers direct. Lim Kim San was nonplussed. He came to see me in my office.”
“Recently, another distinguished former Minister, Old Guard, part of my generation, was deputed by the retired MPs to see the Prime Minister who told me of this. He was deputed to request that the commuted part of their pensions should be restored after 12 1/2 years, as is the case with civil servants. It is not the case with Ministers and MPs. I know what the Old Guards feel. They have seen me. I said you know the rules of the game. You went in, these were the rules, these were the pensions. But they feel that they have been short-changed because their fixed pensions have deprived them of their share in Singapore's growing prosperity. So the Prime Minister has to consider the matter. It is the same society, same Old Guards who sacrificed, some of them literally took their lives into their hands when they decided to stay with the PAP and not move over to the Barisan Sosialis in this House in 1961. But for several of them, the history of Singapore would be different and I would not be meeting and talking to you here. We may be in a completely different age and a different world. Now, let me talk about the recruitment of Ministers. In the last 14 years, only four Ministers have been recruited from the private sector. Tony Tan from OCBC, Yeo Ning Hong from Beechams, Wong Kan Seng from Hewlett Packard and Yeo Cheow Tong from Le Blond. Indeed, the last two, Wong Kan Seng and Yeo Cheow Tong, were originally from the Government. Wong Kan Seng was in the Administrative Service and Yeo Cheow Tong was in EDB. All other Ministers have been recruited from the public sector, either the SAF or the public institutions. For the future, the position will be more difficult.”
“Let me assure the House that the Government enforces strict rules to prevent influence peddling for the benefit of any person or company. But for that Singapore will be just another of the governments in the Third World which we are not. It is important that we remain different because that is an enormous economic capital for us. Lose that and we may lose about 30% of the rationale why we are different, and why we attract different kinds of investments. But I have had to recognise, and I have told the Prime Minister, that you cannot fight this. A powerful wave has swept up our young and some of our not so young. There is an eagerness, almost anxiety, that they will miss the escalator that is moving up and that can carry them to golden opportunities. In fairness to the young, I would add this with almost a touch of nostalgia for older and better times. It has swept up part of the older generation too. Because the Old Guards, they do not just die away. In Hollywood movies, you walk into the sunset and music and clouds. But in real life, you live on, you become a little bit more infirm, you need medical treatment, and you have needs to meet. For example, Dr Goh Keng Swee recently resigned from the Board of the Government Investment Corporation in order to avoid conflict of interest situations with GIC when he advises several financial institutions on investments in Singapore and abroad which may also be of interest to GIC fund managers. That is quite a shift in the world. It is as if I suddenly decided that I will join Henry Kissinger Associates. The rewards are in for key personnel. It is six, seven figures. Or I do not even have to leave Singapore. I could go back to Lee & Lee. I started the firm.”
“The Catholic church has refused to compromise and they are still finding it difficult to recruit. These MPs have all acted rationally. Options are there. They have decided on the sensible option. And all those in the higher brackets of the educational ladder today have broadened their options. This is another problem which the Government has got to face, because our income gap or opportunity gaps between the people at the top and the people at the lower end will widen. You need highly-trained, high-quality men to go abroad with you. Nobody wants your semi-skilled worker. That is what they have. Nobody even wants your skilled worker. They may want your supervisor. Because they have skilled workers too, or half-skilled, who want to do the skilled job, and probably will, in a couple of years. The corporate world in Singapore knows that PAP MPs have been carefully selected. A PAP MPship is like a Good Housekeeping seal, a hallmark of character and integrity that adds value to a person. I instituted the practice. If you look through the MP list, from 1955 onwards, you will find that in 1955 we had two barbers, two postmen, clerks, but they were unionists. They are not ordinary people. But with rising standards, every election term, I had to move with the higher educational level of the voters, something Mr Chiam learned rather late. So he discovered that he had to get graduates. I knew that. By 1968, I started moving in that direction. This is a demanding electorate. Everybody strives to get up to the highest he can of the education ladder, and he wants somebody who is better than him to represent him. He does not want somebody he can talk down to. So PAP MPs are sought after.”
“Dandong which is Liaoning province and they make watches, but not of good quality. But between the capital of the Arab entrepreneurs and the labour force and experience of Dandong, which is the biggest watch factory, I am told, in north-east China, and plus probably Japanese or some high-grade technology, one day I may be presented with a Dandong watch! And I think it is to be encouraged because this was the way Singapore grew, not by becoming careerist climbing up the snakes and ladders. Our forefathers took chances, seized their chances and modern Singapore is the result. I must not forget Dr Tan Cheng Bock. He was only a doctor when I first knew him. Now he is a shipping specialist - Chuan Hup Holdings. He knows a lot about shipping now, and as it should be. Dr Tony Tan, as you know, is back in OCBC as Chairman, no place higher in OCBC, but he has made it. The MPs who used to work in Government, Mr Chew Heng Ching is now an executive of HP Media Holdings Pte Ltd. I do not know what that is but it sounds impressive. Mr Leong Horn Kee of Orchard Parade Holdings, and I know what that one is because I have seen it in the newspapers. Let me explain very simply, Mr Speaker, that MPs are real men and women, just like you and me, with real families who have real aspirations in life. So when we talk of all these high-falutin, noble, lofty causes, remember at the end of the day, very few people become priests. The Catholic priesthood is shrinking. And we are now talking in a consumer age of finding a solution to produce people of comparable quality but without their total sacrifice. So you know the argument about whether a priest should be allowed to marry or not allowed to marry.”
“" He is a consultant and he has matched an Arab group from the Gulf with watchmakers. Is it Anshan?”
“Would you look at Dr Ow Chin Hock and believe that he was the swashbuckling type? He is as cautious, as circumspect, as you can find any academic. And I had expected him to spend the rest of his life teaching Economics in the National University of Singapore, but no longer, and I wish him well, after 20 years of lost opportunities teaching Economics. He is now with Pan United Corporation, travelling frequently to China, and I hope he will not travel less in style than Mr Lee Ying Chuen of WBL. The MP for Bukit Batok, I knew him first as a lecturer in the Singapore Command and Staff College, Military History Branch. Then he became Parliamentary Secretary. Now he is the Deputy Group Managing Director of QAF. Mr Lew Syn Pau left NTUC Comfort. He is now Deputy General Manager, Banque Indosuez. Dr John Chen in NTUC has had many attractive offers. But I am glad to say that he has decided to stay with the NTUC. However, he has also taken on additional work and the NTUC had to agree because otherwise his experience will be more limited and therefore his future options will be more limited too. So he is now honorary economic adviser to the Governor of Szechuan, which I am sure will be a very broadening experience. Mr Chng Hee Kok, you have all read, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Yeo Hiap Seng Ltd. Mr Peter Sung, former Minister of State, is Group Chairman and CEO of Tuan Sing Holdings. Dr Ker Sin Tze, promised to serve two years, served two and a half years, and has gone back to be Chairman, Superior Metal Printing Pte Ltd, and I am quite sure he is not worse off for it. Mr Eugene Yap, former Senior Parliamentary Secretary, is Chairman, Abacus Corporation. I also met Mr Chay Wai Chuen this time in Dalian. I asked him, "What are you doing here?”
“When I was in Tianjin, I knew the Singapore executives were working in Tianjin for about two years already with Motorola. Motorola took them to deal with the staff in Tianjin. They know Motorola's culture. They know what has to be done. They speak Chinese. They get on. And so it goes on. The numbers will grow, because French, Germans, Americans will head-hunt and they are doing this in Hong Kong and Taiwan and they are going to China. In each case, the scope and nature of their work and their total pay and their prospects are totally different. Yes, there could be war, there could be disasters and they would have lost the comfort and security of their government jobs in Singapore and their pensions. What are the odds? One in 10? Even if it were two in 10, if I were a young man, I would take it. Staying here in the government service with the salary scales stucked below Ministers, to Permanent Secretaries, to Judges, etc, etc, me down Grade G, climbing up, why? If we do not do something immediately, the public service will be depleted of talent and this head-hunting for trustworthy and capable men working in government will not stop. They know that the government chooses carefully, that we indoctrinate them on good practices. So today, Indonesian corporations come here looking for executives, they want Singaporeans, more than any other manager - capable, honest, dependable. In this situation, you have to adjust. Even more troubling is finding successors to Ministers. I just look around this House and I read Dr Ow Chin Hock about Feedback Unit. I wonder how the Feedback Unit would react if I told them of the changed circumstances. I never believed Dr Ow Chin Hock would, what the Chinese call, xia hai ( ), enter the ocean.”
“This time, I went to Shenyang on 8th October, I met our former trade representative in Beijing, Lee Ying Chuen. From 1986 to 1988, he was our trade representative in Beijing and then he went back to TDB. But this time, he was well dressed up, double-breasted, he represented WBL. I asked him, "What's that?" Wearnes Brothers Ltd. They have built a "Summer Palace" in Shenyang and they have arranged with the governor that I should visit it. It is a super Big Splash, labelled Summer Palace. It is something better than our Big Splash and something less than what you have read about in Tokyo, a seaside in the centre of Tokyo - US$15 million, and several other investments. He now travels in executive style. I said, "Are you staying here?" He laughed, he smiled, and he said, "I come here one week a month." And he has time for other duties. It is a cosier lifestyle, more rewarding than what the TDB can offer him. Then the Keppel team in Suzhou. They need somebody to lead their team to match and mesh in with the Chinese counterparts. We had to look for a good officer to head the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC), Chan Soo Sen. Now, he has packed up and he is with Keppel-Straits Steamship leading their team. His knowledge of Chinese and his administrative experience, his knowledge of how the government works makes him the ideal man to liaise both with our government team and the Chinese team. And he has got to look for a deputy, because he does not want to live there all the time. So Mr Chew Whye of the National Productivity Board has also been lost and he is now Deputy in the Singapore Suzhou Township Development Consortium (SSTD). The Chinese-educated have now come into their own. They were both from Catholic High School. I am told the whole cohort now is moving in.”
“For the past four years since I stepped down as Prime Minister, I have been studying the external economy and Singapore's place. Prime Minister wanted me to brainstorm and look ahead. I came to the conclusion that unless there was a major upset in peace and stability, which is not very likely for the next 10 years and probably for the next 15 and maybe even 20 years for this generation, this region is going to boom because it is taking off. It started off with the Korean War in the 1950s when the United States built up Japan. Then the Vietnam War, the United States had to source their supplies from South East Asia. From Japan, the industrialisation went to Korea, to Taiwan, to Hong Kong, to Singapore. The Plaza Agreement in 1985 pushed up the yen so the Japanese had to relocate their industries at the lower end. Then the Americans put pressure on the Koreans and on the Taiwanese and on us and pushed our currency up. So we in turn had to relocate and now there is a web of cross investments right across the Pacific, the western end. And unless we are fools and start going to war with each other, we are all going to boom. I have just come back from a visit to China. I will give three examples of how we are losing good officers. These are anecdotal but it brings home to me in personal examples the changed circumstances. Our trade representative in Shanghai is Mr Koh Kim Huat. After three years, he was doing very well because he represented Singapore. They like to link up with Singapore. He got to know everybody and he has a good network of relationships with all the leading officials of Shanghai. But he did not wait to be promoted. When his term ended, he was head-hunted by a leading Chinese Thai entrepreneur in the CP group and he is paid several times more.”
“By which time, because we went through a buoyant period, private sector went on another 20-30%. Under the new system, the only lag will be because the income tax returns are late and analysis and review will only take another year. So it is two years behind time. I do not want to cover what the Prime Minister has done about other systems. But I will bear witness that they are not working and that these countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, would do better if they face up to their problems and adjust their systems. One corporate chief who was head of a think tank, some 15 years ago, passed a scathing judgement on British Cabinet Ministers, that of the 20-odd Cabinet Ministers, he doubted if three would be CEOs of British corporations. Who is responsible for that? They are. They created a climate of opinion where so much hypocrisy exists and the public believe, yes, it is glory. Therefore, you do your job for the country. You end up with what they now call "sleaze". I spent a few days flipping through the English Sunday newspapers and they are just full of it. Contact man. You want to meet the minister. Pay me �40,000 a year as a retainer, I will arrange a dinner. But it is common place in Britain, where it never was. It only used to be the Americans who did that. But hypocrisy has led to the same position. Then you know, the memoirs that people have written. Bob Hawke writes a highly controversial, colourful piece, but of course it is not in the same class as Margaret Thatcher when it comes to pounds. Harper Collins paid her �2 1/2 million. That is an American publisher. And the London Sunday Times paid her just for serial rights a few million pounds.”
“There are brilliant mathematicians, but they make poor executives. They must have a sense of reality of what is possible. But if you are just realistic, you become pedestrian, plebeian, you will fail. And therefore you must be able to soar above the reality and say, "This is also possible." - a sense of imagination. Then Shell has evolved certain other attributes - leadership and dynamism - a natural ability that drives a person on and drives the people around him to make the effort. The two psychologists who worked this out are Prof. Muller, a Dutchman, and van Lennep, I met, because I was interested some 15 years ago. And these qualities are really inborn. You can develop knowledge but if you have not got them, you have not got them, including the ability to be a good interviewer. Have you got that capacity to see through a person, listen to his voice, hear what his words are saying but look him in the eye, watch his face muscle and you know that he is actually thinking the opposite. A good interviewer does that. So the first premise that I work with is that, yes, they are interchangeable. But you must interchange them at an age when they are still flexible because the older you grow, the more set you are in your ways, then the less able you are to take on a new career. I had to choose men from all sources, and it was an extremely difficult job as the economy took off. In actual practice, my formula of 80% did not work because income tax returns came for last year. By the time the Finance Ministry and the Public Services Division had adjusted them and worked it out into the salary scales and made sure that everybody's relativity was worked out, there were another one or two years and so we were two to three years late.”