Further Minute on Tony Pua's Forum of 30/5/2007

At the forum, Lim Kit Siang was so worked up over the high marks given to the Malaysian Judiciary by the Transparency International for being clean and efficient. He harped on the issue and ridiculed the rating of 9 given to the Judiciary, above those in countries like Australia and Canada. How can that be given the past lapses of the Judiciary. He opined that when the questionnaire was posed to the Malaysian interviewees, the best was that they did not understand the questions and the worse was that they were ignorant.

He jested that the fact that the Malaysian Government did not even go to town over such ranking as reported in the local press, spoke volume abut the finding’s reliability given the judiciary’s history.

It is obvious that Mr Lim has an axe to grind with the judiciary and one of them could be the jailing of his son for a expose’.

As we all know the judiciary’s misdeeds happened during the premiership of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and many were crafted by him. It was all in the past. My opinion is that the Malaysian interviewees did not misunderstand the questions or are ignorant because what they have in mind are things as they are now and would be in the future given Pak Lah’s promises and efforts. Any way what has the judiciary to do with the forum’s title of the night: Civil Service Excellence…Quality v Quantity.

Mr Lim also ridicule Pak Lah for giving the same old answers about Japan every time he returned from there. These weree that toilets in Japan are spankingly clean and that the Japanese people have a sense of responsibility in everything they do. He pointed out Pak Lah had been to Japan as Prime Minister 4 or 5 times already and many more times when he was the Foreign Minister and every time he said the same thing over and over again on his returns.

In my opinion Pak Lah’s same remarks about Japan were for the benefit of Malaysians who invariably are forgetful. I would jest that it is also a plus point for Pak Lah for being consistent, a trait past Prime Ministers seemed to lack.

Again what has that to do with the forum’s title about civil servants.

Mr Lim Eng Guan on his part praised the Singapore Civil Service for excellence by giving an example of a Singapore Civil Servant he knew (a generation above him) who kept on studying for examinations while in service. I do not think it is necessary just to pass exam in order to perform one’s work well. This is because repetition and familiarity with one’s works would develop into efficiency. Unless of course there is a new way of doing the same work and in that case a short stint would suffice as an upgrade.

A theory on the art of government in old China says that if the people were busy studying as extolled by Confucius, then they would have little time to plot and overthrow the Emperor. Maybe that is what the whole purpose is.