Open letter to SMRT (or the actual landlord), DBS

at unholy hours ...

Dear management of SMRT and DBS Bank,

Reference to the ATMs located in the basement of City Hall MRT walkway towards SCB and UOB exits.

On numerous occassions that the ATMs above were heavily assessed by users, forming long queues which cut across the common walkway. These queues caused congestion in an already crowded environment, particularly during peak period.

Questions

• Is this appropriate from various safety aspects?
• Should the DBS Bank's ATM users impede on the benefits of other users of the public facilities there?

Please review.

Stop throwing rubbish at my place

Do you have the right to do this to me?

Gelylang Serai Market - What NEA has been saying

it has changed so much since last...

Background info - About 150 people were treated for diarrhoea and stomach pains with 2 elderly dead and an abortion after consuming Indian rojak contaminated seafood materials from a hawker in Geylang Serai temporary market.

What has National Environmental Agency (NEA) been saying so far? Here are the various quotes and my associated comments:-

1. NEA said that it was not directly responsible for hygience at temporary markets, but only at permanent ones owned by Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. "... is job of its management committee" (ST April 9, 2009)

Question - If the management committee of the temporary market is not doing their job in ensuring cleanliness, whose responsibility is it to ensure that these committees effect their responsibility?

2. The alleged stall has been re-rated from "B" to "C" since last December 2008.
But till the day of the incident ie. about 3-4 months after re-rating, the stall is observed to be displating the old notice of "B". (ST April 9, 2009)

Question - Whose responsibility is it to ensure that the stall owners change the displayed sign when applicable?

Guide on fairness but what about the law?

Mr Tan Kin Lian asked the above in his letter to the Forum published in ST on April 7, 2009.

Essentially, I think he said the following:-
a) He is asking for the outcome of MAS/AG's investigation on the petition signed by 983 people affected by the Minibond/Hi-Note saga.
b) You do not act by issuing more guidelines for the industry.
c) Has the law been violated or even activated to address the problem?

My views.
The financial industry is an important component of Singapore's economy. So important that the various of organs of government have to tread carefully in handling the matter. It is not just a matter of addressing the problems of a few thousands individuals and a few prestigious financial institutions.

The guidelines are useful to prevent (hopefully) the recurrence in the interim.

But the state of our financial sector is also so important to other countries that Singapore made it to the "Grey List" of nations with practices that other countries are concerned about. (I think this is an appropriate way to put it.)

The question is whether a crime has been committed. Let me attempt to give you a parallel analogy.

Let's say that a man sold you a stone that was supposed to heal a thousand ailment but it did not. What would you do? You would report to the police and the man would be prosecuted after due investigation.

Similarly (in my humble opinion), if a financial adviser sold you a product that is said to be "capital guaranteed" and "better than fixed deposit" but actually not so. Then what would you do?

So the question again - Has a crime been committed? We await the outcome.

En bloc then, En blocked now

In the Sunday Times last weekend, it ran a story of Horizon Tower 2.5-year-saga coming to another temporary end with the Court of Appeal ruling in favour of stopping the $500mio en -bloc sale to a group of buyers led by HPL's Mr Ong Beng Seng.

Who are the parties involved and what have they won and lost?

The 4 sets of homeowners who objected to the sale
- get to keep their home
- but collectively may have to pay $1 million in legal fees

The 173 sets of homeowners who were for the sale
- total legal costs at about $2-3 millions but "luckily" to be shared by 173 homeowners
- more painful for those who have jumped the gun by going into the property market then and bought a replacement property in anticipation of the sale going through - now these people got to service the loan of an expensively purchased property.

The buyers - HPL and its partners led by Mr Ong Beng Seng
- may have to work out the cost sharing of legal fees of trying to conclude the sale

The lawyers for the buyers, majority sellers and minority homeowners
- We are still awaiting the Court to determine costs but the costs estimated to date could be in the range of $5-6 millions.

The Small Title Board, the various Courts ie. the System - they have been asked to participate in history making.

But one important party not specifically mentioned in the newspaper review is the Government and its officers who have designed and approved the en bloc scheme for use by the market at that point in time. We have to ask the question as to whether en bloc scheme introduced at that point in time, has any contributory effect to the saga.

There should be review of the process and procedures to test on the robustness of any scheme to be implemented. We are dealing with people's home (some with a lot of emotional attachment), to others, one's biggest and most significance asset and to the rest, assets worth millions of dollars.

I got a feeling that the saga is not at its complete end for the moment.

P/S - I have benefited from the en bloc scheme applied to Bedok Reservoir's HUDC but with much fanfare too. I will spare you my views on that exercise for now.