Tuesday, October 21, 2014

ACRES founder going for "greener" pasture

Though I am not pro-PAP but there are a few of Ministers that I respect.  However in order for PAP to get my vote, there are 3 criteria of which the most important is their policies which have a direct impact on us citizens.

The 2nd criteria is how well they implement their good policies.  Well, even in a crate of rotten apples, there are a few good ones to be found.  No point having well intended policies to help citizens but mess up due to poor execution and follow-up.
 
The last of which is the personality and character of the candidate.  So I am not sure how Mr Louis Ng, the founder of ACRES, being roped into PAP is going to help in getting our votes.  Seems like this is their latest strategy to get people who have their feet on the ground into their party.  Maybe their realize that army personals, scholars, doctors..etc  do not go well with public taste due to their 'airy' personality.

I respect Mr Louis Ng, as he done some great work with regards to animals welfare and educating the public in respecting wild life. Few years back, his team in ACRES exposed how easily tiger parts were available in S'pore, though it is supposed to be illegal to posses them. With so lean manpower and fund, ACRES sure aced AVA and put them to shame.  Anyway it is a known fact that AVA normally tails behind non-govt organisations (NGOs) as they are reactive rather than pro-active.

Thus, I am disappointed that Mr Ng has decided to join a political party.  Though some are of the opinion, there is no conflict of interest, but personally I think there is.  Mr Ng has been very vocal about those wild dolphins held in captivity in Resort World Sentosa (RWS) to provide entertainment.  We know that without govt approval, there is no way RWS can get those dolphins into S'pore.

By joining PAP with a party whip to keep members in line, how can there be no conflict of interest ?  He will likely be told to keep dirty lining within the 'family' and not expose them for public viewing. Likely he will tone down on his belief, if there is any left after joining PAP.

Mr Ng started young in his animal activism. It has been a long 13 years of tough work against block heads in govt agencies.  So maybe he is tired and time to move on to "greener" pasture. After all being a family man now is unlike old times where only passion counts in animal welfare. Besides, the potential carrot of $16K salary a month as a MP may be hard to resist. The best part is our MP needs to work only part time to collect their salary.

I will not give my vote to Mr Ng should he be filed in my HDB estate which is under GRC.  GRC is one issue that bugs me as it is unfair and plain abuse of power of the current ruling party to tip the scale in their favour.  Isn't abuse of power a form of corruption ?

Even if Mr Ng stands in single ward, which is unlikely, he may not get the votes PAP hopes for as POLICIES do matter to us citizens as far as judging PAP is concerned. They have past records (recent ones not historical ones from their founding days) for us to judge them.  Their past glory days in the 1960s to 80s hold no meaning to me and likely other citizens.

So do their aggressive propaganda over the media base on their past historical achievement works ? Plainly NO.  They are just wasting tax payer money to glorify themselves, which I think is sickening.


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