DEAR MR KHAW, DON’T JUST APPRAISE SELECTIVELY, BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR STATE OF TRANSPORT!

I refer to what Khaw Boon Wan boasted recently that the MRT reliability has improved 3 times since he took over as Transport Minister from Mr Lui Tuck Yew. Wow! I ask, really? To begin, I want to remind him that the things he said about others also say alot about himself.

Our MRT trains carry hundreds of thousands of people daily, maybe even more and their reliability or unreliability either improves peoples’ commuting experiences and contribute towards improving our national productivity or the opposite. Khaw BW being the top man at the transport ministry has to be Fully Responsible for the sad state of our MRT today, no less and not selectively only.

It is only reasonable and right that commuters expect decent service standards from the relevant authorities and commuters are not obliged to listen and buy his selective apprasial of himself when he knows how to collect millions of dollars in annual salaries but delivers sub-standard services time and again and again….Incompetent is a strong word, maybe we should just call him “selective grading of ownself”.

Next, what “pissed” me off is his “Blatant Absence Act”. Despite many times in the past when our MRT were disrupted and/or when broken downs occurred and crowds swarm train stations, bus stops and spilling onto roads, how many times did Khaw BW or Desmond Kuek or even Lee LW made an effort to go down to the ground to understand the ground situations better, and to show, even if it were just wayang, empathy and solidarity with the affected commuters? The answer should be very few or maybe even hardly.

Worthy leadership is to be with your people in their hours of need, not disappear and only reappear again when the war is over, so to speak. Khaw BW, DK and their senior people all fail very badly on this as well.

In conclusion, I want Khaw BW and Desmond Kuek etc to understand this one simple human behaviour. Although Singaporeans are largely a meek, apathetic and patience lot, still there is a limit.

“Anyone who is good at giving excuses is seldom good at anything else”. Khaw BW, Desmond Kuek and Lee LW etc are no exceptions.