TR EMERITUS

While we expect our politicians to be competent and efficient, do we expect them to be morally upright? Are they the symbol of morality? Or should they be? I know that it is a loaded question. What do I mean by “morally upright” anyway? Whose standard should I benchmark a politician against? If we rigidly analyse Jesus’ admonishment, that is, once you look at a woman in a lustful way, or even catch yourself thinking that way, you have committed adultery, then, I won’t be wrong to say that most, if not all, men (even women exist in majority here), have committed adultery. In an interview, Jimmy Carter ”admitted in an unsolicited comment to two Playboy freelance writers that he had "looked on a lot of women with lust" and had "committed adultery in my heart many times." Is Carter too honest for his own good, or for his own public image? Isn’t there a place and time for being so candid? Or, maybe it’s a case where what he said, and what Jesus at least hinted to, has a grain of truth that is universal, and it is an inconvenient truth most, if not all, of us would rather not hear being spoken about us? Mind you, statistics have shown that when it comes to masturbating, more than 90% of the teens and adult men are guilty of it. And this majority applies to women too. So, unless we are filled with pure, wholesome thoughts, haven’t we all, in one way or the other, betrayed the marital oath? Going back to the first question, should politicians be symbols of moral values? And that would mean that they live a life of virtue; as Aristotle calls it, “moral exemplars”. It is a life of both excellence in thought and character. And for the latter, I would think it is similar to one bearing and exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, as spelt out in Galatians like peace-loving, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I guess self-control means a whole lot. And it is more complicated than you think. It is not just about you alone, your choices exercised, that is, whether you can resist or not. Most times, it starts with where you want to be in the roles that you have sworn to. Take marriage, for example. When you say I do, it is not a one-off affair. You don’t do it for show, even though, well, it is quite a night of celebration, where the bride and yourself are the centre of attention. That “I do” utterance before a crowd of witnesses is meant to be a lifetime covenant. The “force majeure” to that covenant is the end of one’s life (force majeure means legally justified unforeseen circumstances that force one to be unable to fulfil the contract). Death definitely qualifies. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, “Are we serious about our marriage? And how serious are we?” You can’t take any vows seriously if we are not serious about keeping it. Marital commitment comes in pairs and it takes two to clap, and for better grip. And this serious stand demands a disciplined mind and a committed heart. But more importantly, it demands that we renew and refresh our passion consistently so that our attention and actions are kept within the boundaries of the marriage vows. That’s called the freedom of being responsible, where our choices are directed to preserve the sanctity/integrity of the relationship, giving it our top priority. That’s self-control, come what may. And it’s the fruit of a resilient marriage. And I sincerely believe that that is what Jesus meant when he mentioned lust and adultery. So, don’t show me that you are faithful. Just be faithful. You can be an intellectual giant when it comes to promoting marital fidelity, but in private, you can’t keep your pants on when temptation comes knocking. Jesus is not just telling us that thoughts means adultery. It’s more than that. He is telling us this, for where your heart is, there you find the real you. And it defines you. It’s where you form your identity. Thoughts like building blocks, add up. One brick is useless, yes. That is why a single stray thought gets easy pass. But they add up, after many easy passes. No real harm advertises itself as real harm. It always disguises itself as no harm. And from there, it takes root as a foundation to build up a prison made of the same bricks you first thought could do no harm. That is what every politician (or anyone holding steadfast to an oath) must guard against. We can’t be moral exemplars if we can’t even control a “harmless” thought. Self-control comes with constant self-examination, and constant self-examination comes with radical self-awareness. So, I believe politicians are called not just to be competent and efficient. They have to live up to high moral standards too, in private and public. Because, as Jesus puts it, and I paraphrase, the lust of the eye ends up in the indulgence of the flesh. Once it takes root, the path is paved and our fate is sealed. The cost is in the recent scandals of our beloved parliamentarians. And the most fertile soil for its growth is a heart that thinks privately that he or she is beyond temptation or reproach. For we have heard, pride cometh before a fall. My last thought for this post is this: you can boldly stand sentry at the door of your heart, in broad day light, for all to see, but at the same time, secretly creating back-doors to give your wayward self the freedom to roam in the still of the night.   Michael Han * The author blogs on Facebook.        Read More →

1) The weeks of Scandals have distracted most of us from some REAL PROBLEMS of our economy. 2) The Iswaran corruption case, Ridout Gate Saga & the poor management of the sex scandal have dented our international image all around the world. 3) However there are more important issues most of us missed out during these few weeks. The $30.8B loss by MAS together with Temasek loss of over $7B loss are of great concern. 4) The 15% decrease in our Non Oil Domestic Exports together with the problems faced by two of our biggest construction companies which were the main contractors of HDB is alarming. 5) The Auditor General report on some of the financial malpractice is even more alarming. 6) PAP should be spending more effort to focus on our economy instead of fire fighting against scandals after scandals, issuing POFMA after POFMA against critics which won't change the fact that public trust and confidence in them has slided greatly. "Fixing Opposition" won't save you from the enormous loss of public confidence and trust.   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →

Santiago Principles is the generally accepted principles and practices (GAPP) that relate to the operation of sovereign wealth funds. Temasek has always boasted it maintains standards higher than Santiago. Well, it cannot say that anymore as far as financial statements are concerned. There is no audited statutory financial statements for y/e 31 Mar 2023, or at least we don’t get to see one. It is very telling this change happens in the year when it made its first loss in decades. For y/e 31 Mar 2023, what is published and what we get to see is just the Group Summary Statement. This is an aggregated information with limited disclosure prepared by management. The auditor simply provides an opinion that the data is correctly aggregated from audited financial statements. Make no mistake, the accounts have been audited as usual since Temasek has to report to the shareholder, ie the government. Under Singapore Standard on Auditing SSA 810, a company that publishes a Group Summary Statement has to state clearly where audited statutory financial statements may be freely available. Temasek hides behind its private exempt status which does not require it to publish audited financial statements. The light just went out. For decades, executive compensation of Temasek has been a state secret despite requirements of the Companies Act for full disclosure. Now it looks like audited statutory financial statements will also go the way of the dodo birds. It begs the question what is being concealed. We have no idea of the performance of Temasek at company level for 2023. At group level, which includes operating subsidiaries such as Singtel, Singapore Airlines, PSA, ST Engineering, Mapletree, Singapore Power, etc, it lost S$7.3b after tax. From group summary, the loss is just a hiccup. The gross margin remained at 2022 level of 22%, suggesting there was no massive portfolio write down for the year as most would have worried given the tumultuous year in equities. The P&L only shows a write down of S$22b on its Liquid & Sub-20% portfolio. This segment forms 27% of of the whole investment portfolio of S$382b. The segment is valued S$125b pre-write down and S$103b post write down. Cash, near-cash items, and listed equities comprise this segment. The S$22b loss is diminution in value from mark-to-market. The loss is 18% of this portfolio segment which is twice the loss in 2022. 20% or S$76b of Temasek’s portfolio is in listed equities where it owns more than 25% of the stock. We have no idea of any losses on mark-to-market. 53%.or S$202b of investment is in unlisted stocks. These are accounted for at cost less impairment. Valuation gains are only accounted for after IPO or on sales. Ordinarily this is the most non-transparent part of the portfolio. Even auditors would need to place a lot of faith on figures provided by management. This is where investments like FTX would be booked. So how do we know if the S$275m investment in FTX has been written off? How do we know the US$10m given to Mark Zuckerberg for the doomed (which I predicted from day1 that it will fail) fintech Libra project has also been written off? How do we know valuations are ‘on-the-ball’? We don’t. MAS lost S$21.4b on forex losses due to appreciation of SGD. Temasek makes no mention of the impact of changing values on its book. Perhaps they did great hedging currency risks. We learn nothing from the Group Summary Statements. Interest expenses increased by 29% to S$6.2b despite debt decreasing from S$90b to S$78.5b. Temasek is not spared from impact of rising interest rates. The rising cost of funds may perhaps put a dampener on leverage as a growth driver. Total portfolio was S$382b, down slightly by 5%. Pretty resilient, considering the challenging global conditions. Here’s food for thought. A digression here on a personal experience to introduce my point. Some 25 years ago I had some relatives who started out manufacturing some products for the retail market. Wet behind the ears in business, they started a sales incentive scheme which I thought was way too generous and came with the risk of not having a cap. Sales hit the roof and soon sales girls were drawing crazy pay checques. Of course the scheme needed watering down, not without some HR discontent. In my May 2019 blog "Temasek - The Shocking S$3.61b (est'd) Executive Bonus" I described the company’s executive scheme and tried to re-engineer what the bonus for y/e 31 Mar 2018 based on parameters described in Annual Reports. I found it was a shocking unbelievable S$.3.6b. . For y/e 31 Mar 2019 I worked on determining what was the provision for executive bonus carried in the books. The figures were mind-boggling. If my computation is correct, it is tantamount to bank robbery. I blogged about this in Sep 2019 “Is Temasek operating a slush fund?”. I explained what a slush fund is. The figures for provision for executive bonus is so humongous that movements in this account can impact P&L seriously. It can be used to manipulate the accounts. I am not saying it has been done, but if my computation is correct, it represents a critical financial risk. Singaporeans never picked up on such important revelations (most prefer gossipy stuff like current illicit love affairs of members of parliament) and also my blog outreach is small, my stories had no traction. The red flags I raised ought to set alarm bells ringing in every accountant’s brain to get up on their butts to prove me wrong. And I sincerely hope I am wrong. What Temasek has is an incentive scheme without a cap. For a company that can hit double digit billions in a good year, imagine what the payout can be. Such a scheme makes it the employer to die for. To bring this story back to the blog focus on Temasek turning the lights off financial information, the audited accounts for years 2020, 2021, and 2022 no longer carry the information that made it possible to compute the executive bonus and the provision figures the way I did for 2018 and 2019. Is that just coincidence or tightening up loopholes? Perchance someone saw the red flags I raised? So here we are 2023, Temasek has not only done away with publishing audited statutory accounts, it has retroactively replaced past years audited financials in their website with group summary statements. There’s some revisionism going on. History has taught us it is always worrisome when a regime practices revisionism. The devil is in the details. With Temasek now shy on publishing audited statutory accounts, are there any devils that are concealed, one can only wonder, especially in a climate where trust has run low, very low.   Patrick Low * Article first appeared on Down The Rabbit Hole.      Read More →