Let Bygones be Bygones - Why quibble over procedural errors?

• lftwgr

  2 May 06, 17:28

  So which is more serious mistake?
  
  Tharman Shanmugaratnam
  Managing Director and Chief Executive, Monetary Authority of Singapore
  
  Jul 2 2001, Business Week Online
  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_27/b3739052.htm
  
  As a youth, Tharman Shanmugaratnam loved a game of field hockey or soccer. "I've always enjoyed nothing more than playing as hard as I can as part of a team," says the recently appointed managing director and CEO of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the nation's central bank. Indeed, Shanmugaratnam won a reputation as a "clean player" that followed him through Cambridge University, where he earned a masters in economics, to the MAS, where he carries the torch of financial reform.
  
  True to form, Shanmugaratnam didn't get where he is without rolling with the punches. In 1994, he was fined $1,000 for violating the Official Secrets Act, after economic growth projections were leaked to the press. He was exiled to the Ministry of Education for three years before returning to the MAS.
  
  Since then, Shanmugaratnam has thoroughly rehabilitated himself--overseeing reforms aimed at shielding Singapore against post-crisis turbulence and making it more attractive to foreign investors. Shanmugaratnam lifted a 49% foreign shareholding limit on insurance companies, removed fixed rates on the fees that securities brokerages charge clients, and allowed foreign banks to expand their branch and ATM networks.
  
  Shanmugaratnam also has made "Fortress MAS" more open and flexible. "It required a fairly bold change of mind-set," he says. "We had to break away from something that wasn't `broke' but wasn't good enough to keep us competitive." Largely thanks to Shanmugaratnam's reforms, bankers say Singapore is better prepared for global shocks than any other Southeast Asian economy.
• Ito_^

  2 May 06, 17:50

  sorry. what are you trying to say?
• Aveme

  2 May 06, 17:54

  he is saying that there are way more PAP ministers who made mistakes but never asked to pay the price for it while for a silly form,the PAP keep harping for Gomez to withdraw.
  
  PAP make mistake = the people must forgive them,it is just honest mistake
  
  Oppo make mistake = no forgiveness will be given,must go for the kill
• robertteh

  2 May 06, 18:05

  One professor once wrote about his experience in our university saying that in Singapore it is not "what you know but who you know".
  
  We are proudly presented to the world as a country where people are practising meritocracy and no matter how humble is a person's background he will rise according to his merits mainly of the academic type.
  
  So how true is this meritocracy system really working? Or is it only a system for look-good presentation for political control purpose. Much changes have to be made before the professor in that case could accept the treatment he had received. Was he mistreated because of his outspoken views or what was the reason for his unhappiness before he left.
  
  We talk about meritocracy a lot but do we want to recognise potential talents and help them to achieve more and become stars or do we want them to be stars and then recognise them. If we have outspoken Greenspan will our leaders feel the threat and shift them out before they could establish themselves. Will any one who has some projects or ideas ever stand a chance if he does not have the connection?