Plastic Justice

The matter of wealthy plastic surgeon Woffles Wu "abetting" his employee, Kuan Kit Wah, to "provide false information to the police" so as to cover up two of Wu's speeding offences (in 2005 and 2006 respectively). To say that verdict and its explanation by the AGC does not sit well with me is a severe understatement.

Yesterday, in reaction to the AGC's statement, I wrote the following letter to the ST Forum:

I refer to the AGC's statement on the Woffles Wu case ("PP v Wu Tze Liang Woffles", AGC Press Release, 17 Jun 2012). To quote the ST report of that statement ("AGC releases statement on Woffles Wu case", 17 Jun 2012). The highlighted that it was Mr Kuan, not Dr Wu, who had given the false information to the police and that as well as the lack of payment or gratification to Mr Kuan were taken into consideration in the sentencing. This leads to important questions on the interpretation of information given to the traffic police.

After a speeding vehicle is detected, traffic police systems issue a summons to the owner of the vehicle. This creates a correspondence between the owner of the vehicle as well as the traffic police. In this case, the owner of the car would be Dr Wu. The Traffic Police should not be accepting information from anyone on the case other than the owner of the vehicle as they have no standing in the case. Therefore, information provided to the police on the case might be regarded as having been provided via Dr Wu. If this interpretation is correct, Dr Wu should be held responsible for both providing false information to the police and abetting Mr Kuan to assert the veracity of that false information. This would have implications for the proper sentence.

As a matter of public interest, the Traffic Police and AGC are requested to provide clarification on this question of interpretation.

This morning, I learnt some specifics of speeding summons. In summons issued to the owner of the vehicle, he/she is asked to declare whether he/she was the driver by checking or not checking off the following statement:

"I am the registered vehicle owner but not the driver of the said vehicle on the date, time and place of offence as stated in your letter. I hereby furnish the driver's particular(sic) as follows:"

Law Minister K Shanmugam has come out and provided an explanation for the verdict PP vs Wu case based on the explanation given by the AGC. He should have been aware, as a past Minister for Home Affairs and as a lawyer, that such a declaration by Wu would have had to be made and that it would mean that Wu indeed was providing information to the police on the identify of the driver. (Unless, of course, the law's interpretation of communications is vastly different.)

The convenient omission of this fact is highly suspect. Two alternatives are available: (i) the deliberate perversion of justice (perhaps to help a poor rich guy out) or (ii) incompetence (an "honest mistake"). (This is a real dichotomy and not a false one.) I will take the Minister at his word that it was not the case that Wu was spared a jail sentence because he’s rich.

On Fairness in National Service

The recent fracas about Dr Patrick Tan, son of presidential hopeful and former DPM Tony Tan, arguably escaping a doing proper NS term raises the old issue of fairness. Let me outline some of the relevant considerations:

1. Patrick Tan's background would have made him a suitable "Defence Medical Scientist".
2. If the position was created just for him, it points to nepotism. On the other hand, it may have been his case which highlighted the usefulness of creating such a post.
3. If the position was not retained following his exit, the evidence of MINDEF functioning with both fear and favour would be rather damning.

I haven't been able to find anything about the role/career of "Defence Medical Scientist" on the MINDEF, DSO and DSTA web pages, so I've tentatively resolved the greyness for myself on this matter.

On my own experience, I myself disrupted, did my undergrad degree and my masters in what might essentially be operations research (same as Tony Tan amusingly, and at the same institution). Now, when I came back, I returned to 3rd Battalion Singapore Guards to a combat role. It was a good time. I did another ICT in July (it was a high key), and it was fun too. I can't really complain too much.

However, I could have been better deployed, the only time I used my knowledge was when I did a simple network simulation for NDP 2008 to identify choke points in the movement of performers to and from the floating platform. There was a certain SAF Operations Research Office in MINDEF and I would have definitely been better deployed there. My skill level would have been, conservatively putting it, between that of a Senior Analyst and Principal Analyst, and since the equivalent pay would be between $5k-$8k, that would have meant considerable cost savings to MINDEF, along with the introduction of new ideas to that office. (Well, the money may be peanuts to a certain some, but the ideas would be even more expensive to buy.)

It would not have been too difficult for the Central Manpower Base to have conducted interviews with returning scholars to determine if they might be better deployed elsewhere. It is markedly unfair if this process is only available to the privileged and well connected.

If the purpose of National Service is to train young men to be a cohesive fighting force to serve as a credible deterrent, the claim that a descendent or relative or a minster can better serve the nation in NS by not really doing NS is highly disingenuous and dishonest.