Balakrishnan should try a little bit of humility

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Saturday, 14 August 2010

Singapore Democrats

President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Mr Jacques Rogge, has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) that is underway in Singapore, zeroing in on the bloated budget and lack of public support. He said that he hoped the "spiraling" cost of organisng the YOG and the "subdued" enthusiasm among Singaporeans would be overcome for future Games.

But instead of acknowledging the reality of the situation, the PAP is busily telling Singaporeans that they are madly cheering on its woefully organised Games.

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan told Dr Chee Soon Juan to see the "response" on the ground. Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Finance Minister, said that the YOG enthusiasm was "infectious". Now PM Lee Hsien Loong says that the Games "has struck a chord with our people." Comical Ali has come to town.

What is most upsetting is that instead of admitting that mistakes were made in organising the Games, the Government is insulting the intelligence of the people and angering them even more by arrogantly dismissing their criticisms.

First it went ahead with the YOG like it does with everything else - making decsions without consulting the people and then expecting everyone to support it when the time comes.

It haughtily chased students out of their dormitories to accommodate the visitors, reserved lanes for YOG buses on our already congested roads while continuing to charge motorists ERP, and then served quality food for the athletes while giving volunteers sub-standard fare.

All these have antagonised Singaporeans who are already less than enthusiastic about the event. The public has been sorely inconvenienced by an event that it - and the rest of the world - care little about.

Worse, they have been made to foot the bill to the tune of $400 million.

Because money doesn't come from the pockets of the ministers and because there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop the Government from wasting such vast sums of public funds, it's easy for the ministers to play fast and loose with our money.

As the minister for sports, Dr Balakrishnan must shoulder the major part of the blame. Instead of continuing his arrogant attitude, he should try a bit of humility and make the following statement:

On behalf of the YOG organising committee I would like to extend my apologies for the poor showing thus far. As minister in charge of the Games I take full responsibilty for the shortcomings. We will look into where things have gone wrong and how we can rectify them for future events.

In particular, we acknowledge that support for such events cannot come from orders and decrees but from the heart-felt support of you, the people.

We apologise to all those affected by the logistics and for the inconvenience caused especially to motorists, students, volunteers, and businesses.

For now we ask that all Singaporeans get behind the effort to make the Games a success while it is going on. After the event, we will hold public inquiries and public forums to find out all that had gone wrong. We want your views on how we can do better.

In future, we promise to stage such events with the people of Singapore instead of the Government high-handedly going it alone and expecting everyone to cheerily comply with our decisions.

But like the floods, the Mas Selamat escape, and the MRT depot breaking-in the PAP is accountable to no one. This must change.

Read: IOC hoping Youth Games can overcome cost

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Comments (7)

Sat 14 Aug 2010 2:36 PM | Kit - He will not apologise

He stands to lose his job. Alas, no PAP MPs need to risk their jobs for the support of the people they do not need in election walkovers!

Sat 14 Aug 2010 2:36 PM | hechua

This Bala not only screwed up the YOG. He had already screwed about alot of things. Since he became minister of MCYS, more old people are suffering, more people are committing suicide, more people are homeless, more youth deliquency, more gambling addicts, more people borrowing from loansharks, etc.

I guess is hard for him to go back to what he does best (eye doctor) because he may be ashamed to look at people's eyes now.

Sun 15 Aug 2010 4:15 AM | Robox

More than anybody else, it is vivian Balakrishnan who would know that the Ground that he spoke of as being hyper-enthused by the YOG is largely a manufactured Groud comprising people who were under instructions to attend. Granted, if you were a teen or child and no matter what your intial misgivings might have been, it would have been easy to be infected by the sense of fun at these events.

But the true test of the enthusiasm for the YOG would have to be that proportion of the crowd present who were there spontaneously.

That's what we are talking about.

Sun 15 Aug 2010 6:06 PM | quantum - Spontaneity

Spontaneous police will catch la, so must seek permit first.

Mon 16 Aug 2010 7:00 AM | g_e - The curse of Balakrishnan strikes again

I like hechua's acute observation that Viv the Spiv can no longer go back to his old job in opthalmology because he cannot look Singaporeans in the eye any longer. Haha, spot on!

He's now #3 ($400m down the pan) in the sorry pantheon of PAP gods with feet of clay, following in the illustrious footsteps of #1 (HC/Temasek #56b lost) and #2 (LKY/GIC $50b lost). Bala's been moved on from at least 9 high-profile govt posts so far (Minister Trade & Industry, MICA, Chairman Young PAP, Entrepreneurship Minister, etc., etc.) and is notorious for gaffes like 'bar top dancers will fall off and die', 'do you want public assistance scroungers to eat at the hawkers/food courts/restaurants?', and 'you're not anonymous on the Internet, I can get you'. I suppose we ought to be thankful that Al Gore beat him to the claim, 'I invented the Web'.

Where does the buck stop for the disastrous and embarrassing failure of YOG? Would it be reasonable to say, with the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports? Who is he? Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan. Using his sorry ass to extinguish the Olympic flame would make for a fitting end to this expensive remake of the Keystone Cops.

Mon 16 Aug 2010 10:50 AM | putriputra

Read this comment by another netizen from another forum:

"Shouldn’t the cheering be spontaneous from passer-bys rather than orchestrated by the organizers themselves?

During the opening ceremony, the Chairman of S'pore YOG Organising Committee was looking down and reading from his prepared speech on the rostrum.

But each and everytime he gave his thanks, he would pause, look up into the camera and appeared to be anticipating applause from the spectators. By repeating this 5-6 times, even the President of the International Olympic Committee appeared to be ackwarded by his actions.

Despite the large crowd present, the clapping from the spectators sounded more like a cat's meow rather than a thunderous applause.

And this was being watched by the "supposedly" 1.5 billions worldwide TV audience."