• This is foreign worker's penthouse in the HDB Estate
• They swim and relax in the pool.
• The worker should not hold the key
• Town Council needs to look into the matter seriously
  

PM Lee announces changes to Cabinet

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Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has announced changes to his Cabinet line—up, which he said reflects the urgency of the need to prepare for leadership succession.

Three ministers will leave the Cabinet, and out of 14 ministries, 11 will have new ministers in charge.

Speaking at a news conference at the Istana on Wednesday, Mr Lee said it is an epochal change as Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew are leaving the Cabinet.

Mr Lee said he has accepted both former Prime Ministers’ decisions to step down from Cabinet. They had announced on Saturday that they intended to make way for a younger generation of leaders to take over.

Both men had decided to step down after the elections, and Mr Lee rejected suggestions that it’s because that could have had a negative impact on the PAP’s performance in the election.

Mr Lee in particular thanked SM Goh for mentoring him in politics.

Mr Lee said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew is appointed as the senior advisor to Government Investment Corporation of Singapore (GIC).

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong is appointed as senior advisor to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and been given the title Emeritus Senior Minister.

Three more ministers will be retiring.

They are Deputy Prime Minister and Co—ordinating Minister for National Security Wong Kan Seng, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan and Transport Minister and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim.

Out of 14 ministries, 11 will have new ministers in charge.

Mr Lee said this will be a fresh team that will look at the future with a clean slate.

PM Lee said: " I think this is a Cabinet we lined up after the elections. Certainly the outcome of the elections affected my thinking in deciding how to make this Cabinet. I wanted a fresh start, and that’s why I’ve gone for a radical change.

" There is a significant continuity with the previous Cabinet in terms of key members who are involved. Tharman and Teo Chee Hean have worked with me for quite many years, and so have a good number of the ministers who are continuing. So it’s a combination of continuity and change, but it’s a fresh presentation, a fresh line—p and we’re going to take a fresh approach."

Mr Lee said there will be two Deputy Prime Ministers.

They are current Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean who will remain Deputy Prime Minister and will be Home Affairs Minister and Co—ordinating Minister for National Security.

PM Lee also said the three ministers who are retiring had asked to do so before the elections, but Mr Lee only agreed to let them retire now.

Mr Teo’s Defence portfolio will be taken over by current Education Minister Ng Eng Hen.

The other Deputy Prime Minister is Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam who will retain his Finance portfolio and also be Manpower Minister.

The new Education Minister will be newly—elected MP Heng Swee Keat.

Newly—elected MP Major—General Chan Chun Sing will be Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports as well as Minister of State for Information, Communication and the Arts.

One of the big changes Mr Lee had to deal with is the loss of Mr George Yeo as Foreign Minister, which he described as " grievous" . Mr Lee said he will speak to Mr Yeo to see how he can tap into his experience.

The new Foreign Minister is Mr K Shanmugam, who will concurrently hold the Law portfolio.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan will become National Development Minister, a portfolio he volunteered for, and Mr Lee said he’s backing Mr Khaw with a very strong team.

It includes two Ministers of State, with a newly—elected MP, Tan Chuan—Jin.

Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong will be the Health Minister.

The Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, will head the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts.

Information, Communication and the Arts Minister Lui Tuck Yew will be Transport Minister and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan will be the new Minister for Environment and Water Resources.

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen will be Defence Minister.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang will remain Trade and Industry Minister.

Mr Lim Swee Say will remain as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Mr Lee said the team is prepared to look at everything from scratch, and explained what he’s looking for in the new leadership.

" Proven performance and potential as well as political touch. So then, putting them in deep, at the deep end it’s not easy to come in and become a minister, whether acting or full. But I believe they can do it and I’m testing them out," said Mr Lee.

He said there will be a mid—term review in about 2 years, and the new appointments will take effect on Saturday, May 21, which is when the Cabinet will be sworn in.

Meanwhile, several promotions and changes of portfolio were also announced for office holders.

Mr S Iswaran will be promoted to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade and Industry.

Senior Minister of State Ms Grace Fu for Education and National Development will become Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts and Ministry of Environment and Water Resources.

Minister of State, Prime Minister’s Office Mr Heng Chee How will be promoted to Senior Minister of State, Prime Minister’s Office.

Madam Halimah Yacob will be promoted to be the Minister of State for Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports.

Also promoted, Ms Josephine Teo who will be Minister of State for Finance and Transport.

Newly—elected MPs Mr Tan Chuan Jin and Lawrence Wong will be appointed Ministers of State.

Brigadier General Tan will be Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, Mr Lawrence Wong will be Minister of State for Defence and Education, Ms Amy Khor will be Minister of State for Health.

Mr Teo Ser Luck will be Minister of State for Trade and Industry.

Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Manpower, Mr Lee Yi Shyan will be Minister of State for Trade and Industry and National Development.

Minister of State for Home Affairs and Education Mr Masagos Zulkifli will be Minister of State for Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.

As for the Senior Parliamentary Secretaries, Mr Hawazi Daipi will swop Health for Education but still remain Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower.

Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman will add on Defence to his portfolio of National Development, and Mr Sam Tan will take on Foreign Affairs and Community Development Youth and Sports.

Newly—elected MP, Ms Sim Ann will become Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education and Law.

Finally, Mr Lee said Mr Tharman will be Chairman of the MAS.

Prime Minister Lee will be the Chairman of the GIC.

— CNA/cc/ls

Water supply restored but ...

Some residents still squeamish after gruesome discovery in water tank

Ong Dai Lin

dailin@mediacorp.com.sg

One of them, who wanted to be known as Mr Kong, said he only used the tap water to bathe and to wash clothes. “But when I think about the body, I still feel a bit squeamish,” the 47-year-old added.SINGAPORE — The water supply to their homes might have been restored yesterday — following the gruesome discovery of a body in a water tank on the rooftop — but several residents at Blk 686B, Woodlands Drive 73, still felt uncomfortable drinking the water: They stocked up bottles of water to drink and are not having their meals at home.

creative employees

I SAY

today Wednesday May 18, 2011

First, Singapore companies would lose out to other countries because of their inability to innovate.

Many places already have the technical expertise to compete with Singaporeans or compete with us on labour costs.

The only edge that Singapore has is our ability to create and innovate, but employers do not seem to realise that.

Lim Chuan Yang

The ‘it is policy’ approach

Letter from Sebastian Ng

I AM heartened to note that two Cabinet Ministers have addressed the concerns of Singaporeans on policy-making.

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said that Government policies should reflect the “key concerns and priorities of Singaporeans” and be more sensitive to the needs of the ground. The Minister in charge of the Civil Service, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, exhorted the public service to connect with citizens.

I believe the comments reflect a consensus among the Cabinet members that, in the words of the Minister Mentor, it will not be business as usual.

As a post-65er and a former junior civil servant who served for more than 10 years, I would like to share my thoughts on why there might be some form of “resentment” among voters, as some ministers have noted.

Starting out as a young graduate with high hopes and aspirations, and not readily conforming to the status quo, I had asked why some human resource policies were in place.

I will not mention specifics, but when I questioned the HR department over certain policies, the standard reply was:

“It is policy”.

Not satisfied with such a paltry reply, I forwarded my query to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The first reply from the office was that as an over-arching policy it seemed to be fair and just.

I was asked to provide more details about my case.

Upon receipt of the details came a second reply a few days later, consonant with the one given by the HR department — “It is policy”.

The day after, I was chided by my immediate superiors for “biting the hand that feeds me” and was told not to question further.

That episode nearly five years ago is still etched in my mind.

I reckon that my generation has experienced some form of top-down “It is policy” treatment, and this approach does not resonate well.

It is one thing for ministers to give the direction on the crafting of policies, but it can be altogether a different story for civil servants to implement them.

Most of us may know the game of “passing the message”.

The initial objective of the message may be distorted by the many levels of red-tape and manoeuvring from the level of the most senior Permanent Secretaries down through directors, managers, support officers all the way to the most junior officers.

The official feedback channels may not be enough for ministers to gauge the effectiveness of their policies.

Ministers may only get to hear only the “good stuff” from their subordinates.

Perhaps our ministers could start springing surprise visits to the various departments within their ministry and interview the most junior officers to get a real sense of what is happening on the ground.

Such an approach might help ministers explain the rationale of these policies directly and also help to fine-tune or even discard policies that are not working as they should.

Why schemes for the jobless need to target their spouses, too

Couples comprising an unemployed spouse need to be mindful that stresses from searching for a new job can adversely affect their relationship. Not unexpectedly, how deeply they are affected depends on the state of their marriage: Couples in highly satisfied marriages tend to cope better as they have a higher level of concern and sympathy for their partners, while those with rocky marriages tend to be more cynical toward their spouse and of his or her job-seeking efforts.

The walls have ears

In the cat-and-mouse game of authorities and insider traders, tech and tactics are getting more sophisticated

Brooke Masters and Kara Scannell

Unbeknown to Danielle Chiesi, the financial world was just weeks away from collapse.

It was late August 2008 and the hedge fund trader had something rather more particular on her mind.

Having gleaned secret corporate information about Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Chiesi’s worry was that she would attract the authorities’ attention when trading in the chipmaker’s shares. So she turned to her trusted ally, Raj Rajaratnam.

“Do you think that I should be showing a pattern of trading AMD?”

Ms Chiesi asked the founder and head of the Galleon hedge fund firm, according to a secretly recorded wiretap.

“I think you should buy and sell, and buy and sell, you know,” was Rajaratnam’s response, the recording shows.

It’s no bad thing for the IM F

Strauss-Kahn’s fall might bring about rethink of doomed strategy of throwing good money after bad

It gives me no pleasure at all to

jump up and down on Dominique

Strauss-Kahn’s grave. Nor should

we yet presume him entirely dead.

The man must be presumed innocent until proven guilty and, in any event, there is still some chance that the whole sordid affair turns out to have been a political set-up, in which case he might even emerge from this bizarre scandal with credit and sympathy.

Yet it is about time Europe’s ownership of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and particularly France’s apparently divine right to the top job, was brought to a close.

If Strauss-Kahn’s nemesis in a New York hotel room loosens Europe’s grip, then that may be no bad thing.

when  overseas  ? ? ? ?