I have to say it's quite entertaining to see all those opposition supporters baying for blood after Singapore's transport minister, S Iswaran, was instructed by the PM to take a leave of absence amidst CPIB probe he is assisting in.
For the past two months, when the bureau investigated min. Shanmugam and Balakrishnan over their Ridout Rd. bungalow rentals, I heard that CPIB cannot be trusted, because it's all filled with PAP people.
OWNSELF CANNOT CHECK OWNSELF!
Now, however, I am hearing that a scandal is brewing, even though no details of the CPIB probe have been released and what min. Iswaran's role in it could actually be.
I know logic is absent in many corners of Singapore's political scene, but doesn't that actually prove that the (in)famous quip about "ownself checking ownself" is being proven wrong?
That, Singapore government can, indeed, check itself? Or has actually established independent bodies to do it?
Years and years we have been witnessing rants about how PAP is controlling everything and, surely, must be covering up some terrible misdeeds of its members – and yet here we are, in a presidential election year, and two ahead of GE, and a cabinet minister is put in the freezer, while investigation is going on.
It isn't exactly an exception either, as we know similar controls are put in place over Town Councils (remember the corrupt GM of Ang Mo Kio TC sent to prison for 3 years?) or, more recently, SPH after it was restructured, uncovering deliberate inflation of circulation figures.
As for min. Iswaran, I would caution everybody about jumping to conclusions, since we know nothing about the investigation – and rightly so, since there are far too many crazies who would crucify people long before any verdict is given.
I'd like to remind you that the sheer fact of him being questioned or even (technically) suspended by PM Lee, doesn't necessarily mean he was involved in any wrong act himself, but rather that corruption could have been detected somewhere else within the ministry or any projects it had a say in.
Naturally, any person in charge of it would be expected to step aside – at least for as long as any inquiry is carried out.
We can only wait for its results now – though I'm pretty sure one thing it's not going to find is the party leader telling him to take his secrets to the grave.
