Maybe the TODAY paper did not realise it. The day it published the PM’s speech on how the civil service should be a more responsive organisation, it used an interview former top civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow gave to the Singapore Medical Association where he spoke about how unresponsive the Ministry of Finance has been to his suggestions/comments.
Suggestion: That the $60 billion set aside for improving productivity be used instead to pay for the salaries of new graduates that employers hire and train for the first year. This is aimed at employers who don’t want to hire these young people “because they say while the graduates may have the theories, they may have not be able to do the job,”
“I have not received a response (from the Ministry of Finance) yet,” says Ngiam.
Comment: His favourite topic, he says, is F1. “We are paying the Englishmen to stage the F1 night race. Why should we use taxpayers’ money to pay for the races. I have asked this question publicly, but the Ministry of Finance has never addressed it.”
If a man who was once permanent secretary faces this kind of treatment, what chance do lesser souls have?
