Ho Ching & Her Award

Now that I'm back home and have a little more free time to surf the net to find out what's been happening around, I got a shock of my life.

"Ho Ching gets May Day Award" (http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/04/ho-ching-gets-may-day-award/comment-page-2/#comment-68354).

I think many can still remember that when Ho Ching was heading Starhub, it wasn't doing as well as today. And when she moved to Temasek Holdings, she also lost millions of taxpayers' money. 

And she got a May Day Award. For her contributions for?

This is an excerpt from the article: "Ho Ching was awarded the Medal of Commendation - Gold for her contributions to the labour movement and promoting harmonious labour-management relations. "

When banks lost investors money (some of whom entered into the investment with an open eye) and they have to make changes to the sales process to mitigate such risks in the future and are also facing legal lawsuits by their customers, Temasek Holdings went into a series of spending spree without consulting its taxpayers. Neither was it 'punished' for the mistakes it made.

I know it will not be practical to ask every taxpayer for a decision, but then again, shouldn't there be a certain level of accountability, given its role in Singapore? 

And then I read another article on Singapore beyond Lee Kuan Yew (http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/04/singapore-beyond-lee-kuan-yew/) about how Singapore would become after our MM Lee passes on. MM Lee himself stated three possible scenarios: 1. seamless transition 2. significant reversal of what was left by himself 3. PAP to still be the leader but with a stronger opposition.

As more of such Ho Ching incident occurs right in front of our eyes, I really wonder if scenario 1 would ever happen.