www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/...ory_746787.html
Cultural faults we must correct
TWO aspects of Singapore culture are relevant. First is the Government's practice of placing top people where they have no experience. Second is the reactive, rather than proactive, nature of organisations and citizens.
Over the years, the Government has placed people without industry experience at the highest levels of government-linked companies.
Singapore Armed Forces generals and government scholarship holders have parachuted into top positions in telecommunications, air travel and shipping government-linked companies. Some have been successful. Some others have not. Ms Saw Phaik Hwa, while not a government scholarship holder, was similarly selected as chief executive officer (CEO) of SMRT Corporation even though she lacked expertise in the specialised area of urban railway systems or indeed transport in general - her experience was in retail.
The job of managing this critical component of national transport should have been given to an experienced practitioner, perhaps someone with decades of experience in city train systems. For example, an experienced train company administrator from Tokyo could have been head-hunted for the top job because the Japanese capital probably runs the world's most efficient system.
This is where recruitment of foreign talent would have been justified.
Such a person would have known from experience the maintenance, risk management and crisis management systems to implement.
Perhaps with such expertise, the recent incidents might have been avoided.
On the second point, organisations and citizens tend to react only when problems blow up rather than to pro-actively address and nip issues in the bud. We lack a culture of risk management and attention to detail. Lapses like those affecting SMRT are not uncommon - they just usually do not attract as much attention.
Generally, we are not alert to problems and risky situations. Even for people who notice problem situations, most do not bother to do anything.
The attitude is one of 'everything should be fine', until something goes wrong.
A case in point was the brazen escape of Singaporean terrorist Mas Selamat Kastari who climbed out of an unsecured detention centre window. Many people must have noticed the window but simply did nothing, assuming that all would be well.
I venture that the committee of inquiry investigating the train disruptions will find they were caused by something that could and should have been noticed and addressed.
We must correct these two aspects of our national selves.
Tan Soon Meng
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