Cabinet Reshuffle (again)

It came as a shock for many when the PAP government announced a shuffle of cabinets, turning MCYS and MICA to these weirdly worded ministries like Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSFD); the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY); and the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI).

Sometimes I wonder what did all these people in those ministries actually do every day. Did anyone really benefit from anything that MCYS (sponsorships for schools probably) and MICA (which I only remember them doing censoring) do? How can a ministry magically improve family ties?

From what I discerned from the write up of the 3 cabinets, the government believes the ‘family’ factor warranted a full ministry in MSFD, MCYS changed their name to MCCY and assume MICA’s art and heritage functions after removing the ‘family oriented unit’ (net work load remains the same it seems), and MICA’s responsibility essentially becomes lesser after a name change to MCI.

Synergy? Frankly speaking, I don’t see any. What I see is simply a lot more red tape and bureaucracy. From my previous experience in a prominent ministry, there is barely any synergy when you talk about two different departments, much less between ministries. There is more mistrust than synergy as scholars/ leaders in each stat-board and ministry compete to outshine one another. The truth is, the imperialistic system installed will only add on more layers of miscommunication and confusion between huge groups. Why can’t MCYS simply appoint specialized departments to oversee specific functions and coordinate between them? There’s no rule on how big a ministry should be.

What I deduce from this reshuffle is: this is simply a promotion drive. With one more ministry, one can create more positions for themselves. The PAP government needs a full female minister after the ‘unfortunate’ dismissal of ex-MP Lim Hwee Hua in Aljunied, to signal gender equality. There’s not much choice to begin with, so there goes lucky Grace Fu. Then there’s the factor of wage decrease a few months ago. How do you continue to entice people to join PAP after the wage cut? There’s always the promotion drive to circumvent the drop in wage.

Think of citizens as shareholders of a company. Now Singapore Inc wants to create new positions, increase the cost and deliver essentially the same results. Should the share price go up or down?

It doesn’t matter how many ministries you have. If you really have capable people, you won’t need so many people leading the various ministries. Why do we have two full ministers as Ministers of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, which as the name suggest, should be headed by the Prime Minister? Does the incapability of LTA in regulating public transport means LTA should be split up into Ministry of Bus, Ministry of Train and Ministry of Cars?