Public sector procurement lapses: stop throwing away public money

I’m not in the least surprised by the procurement lapses by government agencies and ministries. This is in keeping with lapses elsewhere with government policies eg. the influx of foreigners, the granting of PR and citizenship, phantom workers issues and so on.

One of the reasons is that there is too much money flushing around in the system, and government agencies and ministries are too preoccupied with raising revenue to be able to exercise proper oversight.

That is how the Singapore Land Authority and two other public agencies could be swindled to the tune of millions of dollars. And this could be the tip of the iceberg.

Without doubt the government is rich partly because of its bad habit of finding every excuse to squeeze every cent from the people. With so much money on its hands sometimes it is simply throwing it away on unnecessary public works and landscaping projects.

For example, near my place they are covering up the exposed drains. For what? There’s already a pavement for pedestrian, and nobody is going to fall into the drain as there’s a railing. Probably thousands of dollars for this project with the main beneficiary being the contractor.

Again, in Yishun outside Safra both sides of the road underwent a landscaping overhaul to make this stretch of road more beautiful. Again, for what? There was nothing wrong with the former landscaping in the first place.

A friend teaching in a polytechnic in AMK told me how its foyer’s flooring was hacked up and replaced with new tiles. He said, “A complete waste of money. The old flooring was perfectly alright. What for? You think the teens will gush and say Wow, what beautiful flooring?”

The government should learn to be more frugal. Spend more on things that matter like healthcare, polyclinics, on the elderly poor and needy. And not on unnecessary projects.

Reduce your fees and charges and let the people keep the money in their pockets for their families instead of throwing it around and creating opportunities for fraud.