It's about accountability!!!

Recently I've been reading news and online rantings on the MAS Selemat case and on how MHA is handling it. I feel that most of the news out there missed out one particularly important point in this whole saga.

It's not about resignation.
It's all about accountability.

Indirectly, its linked to the high pay that our ministers are getting. With high pay, comes big responsibilities.

MHA is big, with many ministries under its jurisdiction. So what?? That's precisely the reason why they are getting the high pay. Since its under their jurisdiction, its their responsibility to ensure that they know what is going on, especially in areas of high security.

Now that there's a lapse of security, and many of the flaws are those that can be seen with a simple check. So that begs the question on what is this supervisory role that MHA is doing. Did they send their own people down to do an area survey regularly to ensure that procedures are being followed?

So it really tickles me that since MHA knows nothing about it, the heads should not be punished over it. The funny part is that its precisely this reason, that they should be punished appropriately! Where's the accountability?

For example, if I'm leading a team of developers on a project, and I did not supervise their tasks and ensure that the project schedule is followed, it's also my fault that the project did not proceed smoothly. Having started from the bottom rung, I understand that when you're performing your stated duties, very often you have no time, and no energy to care about anything else. Especially with Singapore's reputation of being efficient, we're tasked to multi-task among many other things. Therefore, its up to the people up there to supervise and ensure that the schedule or procedures are being followed.

By pushing the blame to the lower rungs, and saying the management is not at fault speaks of the in-experience of the management of handling the ground operations. They do not know what it is like handling the operations on the ground! Being in the management level doesn't mean its only making decisions, delegating jobs and tasks to the subordinates. It's more than that, much more.

The government should send a strong message that with the high pay, comes bigger responsibilities and if things go wrong, some form of accountability must be enforced. Its not all about listening to the good stuff!!

Or else why do they think they are getting the high pay??