Vivian B, YOG and the destitute

by Helluo Librorum

The government behaved like a profligate trust fund playboy, with an inexhaustible flow of money that he has not earned with his own labor,  lavishing all manner of expensive gifts on a beautiful damsel. To no avail.

The damsel was not impressed. She spurned him.

And Singaporeans are left with a bill of $387 million for all his extravagant ways.

The government spent $387 million on the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), exceeding the budgeted $104 millions by an astounding $283 millions. The world hardly gave YOG a second glance (here).

Vivian B has so far resisted all attempts to open the YOG accounts for public scrutiny. Clearly he has something to hide. What?

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The cabinet annually pays itself $63 million (here). And it has $283 million of spare public money to splurge on YOG.

At a time when the public coffers are clearly brimming over, Vivian B, the minister in charge of both the YOG and public assistance to the destitute, strenuously resisted the repeated pleas by Dr Lily Neo, a rare PAP MP who dares to confront the minister and speak her mind, to raise the allowance to the destitute to ease their plight somewhat (here).

The entire public assistance program costs perhaps $27 million, or a mere 43% of the ministers' salary (here), or 9.4% of the YOG budget.

I think the PAP government's priorities are dangerously misguided, not least because they stoke the fire of public anger.

The advantage of the public fury, from my perspective, is that it helps the cause of building up a strong opposition to the complacent "deaf frogs" (Lim Swee Say's phrase, here) in the cabinet.