I don’t know to admire or angry with these civil servants’ innovativeness- if only they put their innovativeness into works rather words.
“As far as I am concerned, PUB should not have used the word ‘ponding’. I call a spade a spade. A flood is a flood.” – Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan
Updated 10 Jan 2011: I am glad Dr Vivian has the morale courage to tell PUB off, enough of these clowns’ language acrobats.
From a “once in 50 years” event, flooding is now expected in almost every heavy downpour, reducing our first-world roads to a wet mess. But in “No floods in Orchard Rd, just ‘ponding’: PUB” (Dec 24). this was referred to as “ponding”.
It would be sad if we resort to word usage to dissipate the impact of these floods. We have been offered reasons, and remedies have been promised, but the issue has become a crisis over the past two years.
Do our officials have a handle on this problem? Has the incessant load of new developments in recent years exceeded the limit of our national drainage system?
The new head of the national water agency, from this month, is an ex-Navy chief. What are the credentials that enable him to head PUB?
When my friends from overseas talk about visiting Singapore, they joke about packing canoes and scuba gear, and I am embarrassed to have nothing to say in defence. It is time for a solution. Letter from Peter Loon Seng Chee
AFTER it flooded on Dec 23, national water agency PUB swiftly refuted allegations that Stamford Canal had overflowed and said instead that water “ponded” at Liat Towers, as the volume of rain could have exceeded the building’s pumping capacity.
It also hinted that Liat Towers’ management should change to more powerful pumps.
In an about-face on Dec 30, though, the PUB acknowledged that stretches of the canal in front of the building had reached full capacity, implying that the best pumps in the world would not help to discharge rainwater into a full Stamford Canal.
While it is good that the PUB made the clarification, this episode demonstrates the attitude of some public officers, who are quick to deflect blame whenever problems arise, instead of addressing them honestly and transparently.
I could not believe it when Channel NewsAsia reported that crows are under the purview of the National Environment Agency while the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority handles complaints about pigeons.
With bird flu a growing concern, we should put just one government agency in charge of all birds.
If we should then see dead birds here, we could just inform that authority instead of first having to find out the type of bird and then the relevant government department.
If there is any logic in dividing the work later within government, let it be handled internally. The public is not interested in those details. Letter from Lim Poh Seng
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