Alan Shadrake decides to fight!

."I will not grovel to them....I will carry on this fight." - Alan Shadrake

They offered to drop the charges if he apologised but he refused to roll over. The contempt of court charges only require the prosecutors to prove that there is "inherent tendency" to affect the administration of justice:

"Attorney-General v Hertzberg and others [2009] 1 Singapore Law Reports 1103, which has generated worldwide interest as it arose out of articles published in the Wall Street Journal Asia. In Hertzberg, the High Court of Singapore held that utterances by an alleged contemnor are actionable if they merely have an inherent tendency to affect the administration of justice."

[Source]

It was reported that the prosecution will put up 20 pages of Shadrake book as evidence. It does not matter if those 20 pages contain fact or fiction, as long as "inherent tendency" can be proven Shadrake will be found guilty. i.e. for Shadrake to win, he has to prove he did not write his own book given what those 20 pages say about how the law is applied in Singapore it is trivial to prove 'inherent tendency'. The integrity of our courts is protected by prosecuting anyone who questions it. That there is justice and equality in our legal system and anyone who says otherwise will be presecuted by the system itself will reassure the public of its integrity is a strange notion. What this will effectively do is intensify the fear in ordinary citizens to speak up when they experience injustice and unequal treatment under the system. The just and equal administration of the law depends very much on the people running the system - what goes on in their head, what they fear will happen to them if they behave in a certain way. Knowing that they are protected because people are unable to speak up against the justice system will take away some amount of check and balance in the system.

The Shadrake case somehow reminds me of another 'equality' issue that was discussed a few years ago....and I will use it to illustrate that whatever the intent of the laws and systems we have in place ultimately it is people in the system and their attitude that determines if you get fair and equal treatment for all. A few years ago, the issue of whether there were NS men identified 'white horses' cropped up in parliament. For the non-Singaporeans reading this, these 'white horses' were the sons of the rich and powerful and there was unhappiness among Singaporeans who perceived that these 'white horses' were given special treatment during NS. Cedric Foo who was Minister of State for Defence explained that 'white horses' did exist and these people were classified to ensure that they did not receive special treatment[Link] i.e. they were to be treated the same as sons of cleaners and hawkers. So the expectation of the govt was that once the COs, ICs and platoon commanders knew that there was a 'white horse' in their unit, they would make sure that he was treated as harshly as they would treat a hawker's son. That is how the PAP expects human beings to behave to bring about greater equality in our society ...that also explains the level of equality we have been getting as a result of their policies. Whether our justice system is fair, depends on the people in the system and how vigorously they will pursue equality in the application of the law....that Vui Kong is treated the same as anyone else even the child of an MP or someone from the upper echelons of our society depends on the people in the system and what they believe will be the consequences of their actions. So if a SAF commander believes that he will be badly reprimanded if he does not punish a 'white horse' as harshly as he would a hawker's son, there will be greater equality among those serving their NS. Those who have served their NS can see for themselves what actually happens on the ground and that is also true for the justice system...people will know what the truth is regardless of what can and cannot be said about the system.
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Death penalty book author defiant in Singapore [Link]
(AFP) – 16 hours ago

SINGAPORE — A British author facing a possible jail term over his book criticising Singapore's use of the death penalty was defiant following his first court hearing Friday.

Alan Shadrake appeared in a packed courtroom to hear contempt of court charges levelled against him by the Attorney General following the local launch of his book "Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock".

A High Court judge granted an adjournment, giving Shadrake's lawyer two weeks to further prepare for the case and another week for prosecutors to respond.

With his passport impounded to prevent him from leaving the country, the 75-year-old freelance journalist remained defiant despite facing possible imprisonment.

"Whatever they do to me, it will prove whatever I say in my book," he told reporters outside the court after the hearing.

"I'm not a wimp, I'm not a coward," Shadrake added. "I want to have my day in court... I'm not running away. If I run away, it means I'm guilty."

Shadrake's book features candid conversations with a retired hangman, Darshan Singh, who the author says executed some 1,000 local and foreign criminals in a career spanning nearly half a century.

Based in Malaysia and Britain, Shadrake is out on bail for the contempt charges, and is undergoing a separate investigation for criminal defamation.

Defamation carries a sentence of two years' imprisonment or a fine or both, while contempt of court is "punishable by imprisonment and/or a fine, with no limits on either," said a statement from the Attorney General's Chambers.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have urged Singapore to abolish the death penalty.

Amnesty said that with a population of nearly five million, Singapore has one of the highest per capita execution rates in the world. It executed 420 people between 1991 and 2004.

However, Singapore officials maintain that capital punishment has deterred drug dealers from operating in the country and spared the lives of thousands of young people from drugs.

The death penalty is mandatory for anyone caught trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine or 500 grams of cannabis.

Shadrake said his arrest had been counterproductive for the Singapore authorities.

"They've blown me up into a worldwide celebrity," he said, adding that his book was "selling like hot cakes" in neighbouring Malaysia.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

MM Lee : Never Retire & the Intellectual Class.

Hardly a day goes by without MM Lee sharing his thoughts with us. You may not like him or what he says but his sometimes very direct assertions does give us a glimpse into the thinking of the PAP govt.

"Never Retire" - MM Lee

Thank you MM Lee. Now we can skip all the useless and worthless talk about pushing the retirement age higher and higher every few years. The term 'retirement age' in Singapore carries very different meaning from other developing countries. In other developed countries, when the govt commits to a retirement age, all govt policies on healthcare, pension and taxation are steered towards making sure workers are taken care of once they reach the retirement age. It is a promise that, however hard your struggle to earn a living is today, you can look forward to retirement at a certain age. Shifting retirement age is a very big issue in other countries and is seen as a solution that is taken at the last resort. In France, people have taken to streets to protest the shifting of retirement to 62. The man who wants to do it Sarkozy says he share the pain of workers and has to convince them that it is only done because it is necessary. Here in Singapore the word retirement has a different meaning and the most important implication of a change of retirement age is when you can withdraw your CPF. There is no govt pension, retirement medical plan or housing to look forward to. You pay for your own retirement. If you don't accumulate enough, you can't retire....simple as that. With the current income gap and rising cost of living, a large segment of the population will never be able to retire regardless of retirement age. Those who struggle the hardest to make a living will also end up working the longest. The govt pushes the CPF withdrawal further and further back to force them to work longer....they have no choice as they depend on their CPF to retire. Those who cannot accumulate enough in their CPF can never retire. The people who can retire earlier are the ones with the highest income and don't depend on the CPF. In many countries, the system attempts to bring about great equality by setting a retirement age and commiting resources to ensure that everyone can retire once they reach that age. This is important because it tells workers that no matter how bad their struggle is when they work for decades at lower paying jobs, they can look forward to a decent retirement. Here we have the biggest income gap in the developed world and a retirement scheme that extends the inequality into retirement with many never able to retire.

MM Lee also spoke about building a separate class of people from the ordinary citizens known as the intellectual class. This class of people will be formed mainly from students imported from India and China. He also said there is insufficient talent among Singaporeans and that the Malaysian talents we imported are "not so bright".
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"...they are staying because going back does not give them the opportunities we are offering them here..." - MM Lee

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As a strategy, a country should not close it doors to external talent. If you bring in the right people, it can create great opportunities for your own citizens and improve their quality of life. But here, MM Lee is talking about creating a special class of people and giving them special opportunities. I strongly believe that the future of Singapore should depend primarily on developing our own talents and importing foreign talents only if it benefits our ordinary citzens. Once the govt pursue a strategy of importing talent and giving them opportunities, it relegates the development of our own people to a lower priority. Take sports as an example. Why would they bother to scout and develop local talent when they can just hop over to China and bring in talents - it is so much easier and the results more instaneous. To raise the standard of a certain sports requires the (sports) association to popularise it, create clubs in the schools and special programmes for those who are talented. Once you can import talent, you can basically forget about all the hard work of getting locals involved involve in the sport and developing local talent.

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Why is MM Lee so obsessed with having an 'intellectual class' anyway? If you have been listening to him closely all these years, you will understand that the PAP believes that it is solely responsible for the success of Singapore. This plays down the contributions of men and women who formed the number 1 workforce in the world for decades - a workforce that never went on strike, accepted less benefits, worked longer hours and took CPF cuts during recessions. This generation of workers are now heading for retirement with little medical benefits and pension because they took low wages to build this country taking us to where we are today. While the PAP govt pays itself the highest salaries in the world, these workers have the least benefits among workers in the developed world. MM Lee talks about expanding the 'intellectual class' by 3 times using foreigners and keeping them by giving them special opportunities. This is what ordinary Singapore get for being obedient citizens - an intellectual class comprising mainly of foreigner sitting on top them and taking away their opportunities to succeed.

Alan Shadrake accused of contempt of court....

Singapore's laws on drug trafficking are extremely harsh. Mandatory seath penalty is imposed for possession of small amounts of drugs. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act[Link], a person possessing small qualities of drugs is presumed to be trafficking it unless proven otherwise. The mandatory death penalty has been imposed recently on a poorly educated Malaysian, Yong Vui Kong. who was running errants for his mob boss when he was a teenager (19yrs old). It doesn't matter that he could've been 'forced' into it by the mob or that he was poor or that he was a teenager - the death penalty is mandatory for the amount of heroin he was carrying. Vui Kong had 47 grams on him. I wonder if he even knew that possessing 30 grams of heroin carries the death penalty - in China he would have been spared because it takes 50 grams for death penalty to be imposed. We can argue whether death penalty is right or wrong but even those who support the death penalty have to admit that our laws are harsh ...so harsh that we have one of the highest, if not the highest, execution rate per capita in the world

The problem with extremely harsh laws is that you have to apply them equally to every one and that for practical reasons is very difficult. The system has to be equally determined to prosecute someone from a wealthy country where the same crime carries a far lesser punishment. The death penalty in Singapore will trigger a big outcry in the home country, accusations of human rights violation, and protests by its leaders. Death penalty for 47 grams of heroin is quite shocking for people in many countries.

One of the issues Shadrake examined in his book is whether the law has been applied equally in all cases involving drug possession - rich and poor, people from different countries. You may think that now that charges have been brought against him, he has the chance to offer proof to substantiate what he wrote. That would be true if he was charged for criminal defamation in which case, his lawyer can defend him by showing that what he wrote is true. However, he is charged for 'contempt of court'. In Singapore, you can only legally say that our judicial system is just and all it takes for them to prosecute is for you to write something contrary to that. Alan Shadrake will be found guilty of those 'contempt of court' charges unless he can prove he did not write his book, "Once a Jolly Hangman" - at this point it doesn't matter what he wrote is true or not:
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"I submit that the ‘inherent tendency’ test does not meet the standard of rationality required by Article 14. First, when the test is applied, it does not matter whether there is any truth in the utterance by the alleged contemnor. A court may convict so long as it takes the view that the utterance poses some hazard, even if slight, to the administration of justice."

- Freedom of Speech and Contempt by Scandalizing the Court in Singapore

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British journalist accused of contempt of court [Link]

Friday, 23 July 2010 19:26

Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the contempt of court charges that have been brought against British freelance journalist Alan Shadrake in connection with his new book, “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock.”

Freed on bail last night, Shadrake is due to appear before the Singapore high court on 30 July.

The press freedom organisation has seen a copy of the complaint brought against Shadrake by the attorney-general’s office. It consists of just a series of biased and malicious allegations that show that the case is an abuse of judicial authority.

The complaint says that parts of the book, which is about Singapore’s use of the death penalty, “contains imputations against the independence and integrity of the Singapore judiciary”. In evidence, it quotes around 20 passages which for the most part contain widely-known facts about Singapore’s justice system.

“He was very tired and shaken when he was released,” Shadrake’s lawyer, M Ravi, told Reporters Without Borders. “During our interview, he broke down in tears because of the pressure he had been under during the interrogations sessions. The police questioned him again today for several hours. My client insists that everything he wrote in his book is true.”

Shadrake is facing a possible two-year jail sentence and a heavy fine if convicted. Reporters Without Borders calls on the British government to do everything possible to get the Singaporean authorities to drop the charges. In response to a question from Reporters Without Borders, a Singaporean diplomat in London confirmed that Shadrake would have to remain in Singapore “to assist the police" with their investigation.

Shadrake was released from the headquarters of the Singaporean Criminal Investigation Department at 11.30 pm on 19 July after payment of 10,000 Singaporean dollars in bail. He spent a total of 39 hours in police custody, during which he had to sleep on the floor of his cell and was interrogated for several hours at a stretch about his book.

The police have confiscated his passport and mobile phone.

20 July 2010

MBT : There is IMBALANCE in the Market!

Imbalance? The word 'imbalance' must be Minister Mah's euphemism for 'shortage'. Still, I think it is a step forward for Minister Mah to admit something is amiss[Imbalance in resale market]. There has already been months of waiting by ordinary Singaporeans and flood forum letters, complaints to HDB, discussions on the Internet and many many signs that something is not right. Yet the minister made numerous denials that something more needs to be done before the shortage worsens.

Admitting there is some kind of problem is a first and necessary step to start fixing the problem....but it is not a sufficient step to address the issue completely. Minister Mah still has not demonstrated that he understands the cause of this 'imbalance' (maybe he just doesn't want to admit it). One just have to look at his proposed solution:

'HDB has launched almost 9,000 new flats in the first half of the year, and it will launch another 7,200 in the second half to meet growing demand. Another 4,700 new flats under HDB's design, build and sell scheme (DBSS) and recently sold executive condo sites will also add to the supply. In the short-term, Mr Mah said it was hard to tell if prices would continue to rise' - Straits Times Report [Link].

Strangely, Mr Mah said 'it was hard to tell if prices would continue to rise'. Why is it so hard to tell when the PM just said that 100,000 foreigners will be needed in the coming months. How can the shortage (a.k.a imbalace) be fixed when HDB is only offering 11,900 new flats? ...and these flats take time to build before people can live in them!

The truth is the PAP GDP growth strategy has now become highly dependent on foreigner labor and this imported labor is brought in at a faster rate than what our infrastructure can support. Trains become overcrowded, housing costs spiraled up and there was even a shortage of hospital beds a few months ago. To keep the GDP rising, the benefit of which is very unequally distributed with much of it going to the profits of corporations many of which are linked to the PAP govt, ordinary Singaporeans have to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the pain and burden of PAP policies.

HDB prices hit new high!

The prices of HDB rose by 4.1% in the 2nd quarter (April - June) of this year[Link]. This rise is also mirrored in private properties which rose more than 5% in each of the last 2 quarters of this year - that is a whopping rise of more than 10% in 6 months. There are many negatives associate with the increase in property prices. Property prices rising much faster than income means that ordinary Singaporeans have to take up more debt for housing. The price rise also worsens the effect Singapore's income gap which is already the highest among developed countries - middle and lower income families have to purchase smaller homes and are unable to upgrade while wealthier Singaporeans more than 1 property can enjoy the wealth effect of higher prices by selling at these lofty prices.

Things are not going to get better with another 100,000 extra foreign workers that PM Lee said will be here in the coming months. They too will need housing and that will worsen the situation. In the recent BTO for Ponggol Waterway Terraces, the number of applicants was 18 times the units on offer. We have a very hot market set to get hotter in the coming months unless HDB does something to meet the demand. One can argue whether we are in a bubble or not. Bubbles are obvious only on hindsight. However, price rise that is so much faster than income growth means that the debt burden for ordinary Singaporeans buying homes has increased rapidly in the past few quarters. For an economy that depends on workers to be faster, better and cheaper, rising debt burdens and increase in cost of living will undermine their ability to save, cause their living standard and quality of life to fall and lower their ability to start a family and have children. The govt is asking workers to be cheaper while it does little to arrest the risning cost of housing.

Last week NMP Viswa Sadasivan urged the govt not to focus solely on GDP growth[Link] and use other economic indicators that measure the general well being of the ordinary Singaporean. I would go even further than that by saying that the high GDP growth is negatively correlated with improvement in quality of life for a large segment of the population. For many Singaporeans, the GDP growth in recent years simply translate to increase cost of living without the correspondng rise in wages. It has to do with the way the PAP govt generate such high growth by importing foreign labor. When the economy grows, you see headlines like the on today's Straits Times "Resale HDB Prices hit new highs" but you won't see headlines like "Wages of Singaporeans go up by 5% last quarter". ...as property prices, transport costs, utility rates, conservancy charges rise to negate any economic benefit of growth.

Sunshine Empire : Lessons Learnt....

Sunshine Empire ran a Ponzi scheme using more from new investors to pay existing ones. These schemes will eventually collapse when they cannot find new investors to pay existing ones. Using slick marketing and a number of well dressed hardselling sales people, Sunshine Empire pushed its investment profucts, known as memberships, to ordinary Singaporeans. It was reported that a number invested their entire lifesavings. Sunshine Empire promised roughly 2% returns per month and collected $180M from investors. At its height, its well renovated was packed with eager investors wanting to purchase memberships.

Here are the postings in my blog on Sunshine Empire:

Man Badly Burnt by Sunshine Empire Scam....19 Oct 2009.
Singaporeans try short cut to riches....28 Oct 2007

The authorities stopped Sunshine Empire only after it had already sold 20,000 memberships. It just shows how many people are unable to differentiate an almost obvious ponzi scheme from a legitimate investment product. This large number tells we are long way from being a completely financial literacy as a society and scams and con-men such as James Phang can inflict great harm on ordinary people. Very often the authorities take a 'buyer beware' approach expecting ordinary folks to be equip with the knowledge and experience to avoid such scams. The Sunshine Empire case shows us this expectation that people over time will develop the financial skills to avoid major scams is simply not realistic. It has been been 46 years since the 1st major Ponzi scam, the Gemini Chit Fund[Link] swindled thousands of Singaporeans and we still don't have a regulator with enough teeth and vigilance to stop such blatantly fraudulant scams.

Recently the media reported that a landbanking company, Profitable Plots, sold questionable products to many investors who are now trying to recover their money. In June this year, a group of Profitable Plot investors decided to sue company [Link]. All this happened long after Malaysian authorities raided Profitable Plot's office[Link] in Oct 2008. Today there is still no action from the authorities here and Profitable Plot investors have taken matters into their own hands[Link]. How long before the authorities start to act? When the case involve tens of thousands of investors?

Here in Singapore, the authorities have time to catch and fine people for hawking of newsletters. They will react strongly when people write books about them that they don't like[Link] and the laws are extremely and unnecessarily harsh to prevent certain types of criticism....so that authorities can arrest people quickly and throw them in jail for their views. Videos are banned if the contents don't boost their reputations and reinforce their version of history[Link]. However, when it comes to stopping financial scams and con-men to prevent ordinary Singaporeans from being hurt, there is no sense of urgency,

Stock Market Update

In my previous stock market update in June 2010[Link], I wrote:

I ran everything through with the latest data and this is what I got:

1. The market will recover from the recent abrupt drop from now until end Jul 2010.

2. In end Jul 2010 to Aug 2010, the market will form a 2nd peak that will be close but lower than the 1st peak. You should really get out if here if you miss the 1st chance to end out in end April early May.

Since I haven't completely embarassed myself by making wrong forecasts, lets continue. Despite doom-sayers talking about a double dip recession and worsening European crisis, the market rallied for more than a month. If you look across markets, there are a few important things to note. First is relative strength of the some Asian stock markets vs the US stock market. The Indonesian stock market is at an all time historic high[Link]. This is a departure from the rally from early last year when the STI was closely correlated with the movements of the DOW. Secondly the US$ has weakened considerably against the Euro and a number of Asian currencies and this favors the risk trade. On Wednesday the DOW had a sharp selloff because the Bernanke said the US economic outlook that is subject to “unusual uncertainty'. Actually this is not true. Many investors are confused too by the sometimes good sometimes bad economic data that comes out. The confusion stems from the fact that the economic indicates are split into various timeframes some are leading indicators, others are lagging indicators and a few like transport related indicators that can be measured in realtime are coincident indicators. When you get various economic indicators sorted out based on the timeframe ...what it tells you with a good degree of certainty is the US economy has been growing but it is slowing with a good chance of a historically rare double dip. The only is uncertainty is what Bernanke himself is going to do to delay what some people say is the 'inevitable'.

I ran the new data through my models since the last update and it tells me that we are on track for a run up to a peak from end Jul to Aug 2010. Not only that because money is flowing into Asia ...and focussed on index stocks tracking the recent purchases - the STI is up even when advance-decline line dips down) the peak (measured by the STI)may exceed the high of this year. However, like I said things don't look too rosy beyond that and this run up is likely to soak up much liquidity and the outlook for the economy doesn't look too good.

Floods : Singaporeans want answers!

Lets face it - we, netizens are not experts in flooding. However, it does not take experts to figure out that what Amy Khor said about the Marina Barrage alleviating floods('preventing a bigger disaster' were her exact words) is inconsistent with the way the barrage works during low tide when the crest gates have to be opened. We were told it was once in 50 years rainfall, then debris in drains, then later that morphed into the Stamford Canal not being wide enough. Yesterday, MM Lee said that the floods were due to 'extraordinary rainfall' and cannot be avoided. That high rainfall cause floods is obvious but if that is the main cause why haven't the flood prone low lying areas just north of Singapore i.e. in Johor had any floods in recent weeks? Is it possible that heavy rain just fall intensely onto our tiny little red dot leaving nearby areas like Johor dry? The ordinary Singaporean may not be an expert but he can tell when he is given an incorrect explanation and he can generate intelligent questions that he wants answered.

This is a picture of the areas in Singapore that has been flooded[Google Map Link] courtesy of Kojakbt:

You can superimpose that on to the canal system [Link].

I urge you not to jump into various conclusions how ever logical and obvious as they may seem because we are not experts and cannot prove anything rigorously without more data - there are also other plausible explanations e.g. underground works and construction have affected the flow of underground water. The authorities have created many convenient explanations that seems to put blame away from themselves ..and changed them along the way when the older explanations cannot fit the new observations - once in 50 years rainfall, debris in drain, etc. That is not the way to win confidence and reassure the public. There are people who have suffered serious damage to property and business who deserve better answers.

How the Marina Barrage Crest Gate works....

"The Marina Barrage reservoir did help in preventing a bigger disaster during the recent flash floods, said Dr Amy Khor, who was present at yesterday's event in Bukit Gombak"

"The Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, said that six out of the seven gates at the barrage were left open to manage the amount of rainfall during the heavy thunderstorms last month."

- Today 12 Jul 2010[Link]

Here's a set of pictures (courtesy of Kojakbt) that appeared in the Straits Times explaining how the crest gate works to alleviate floods:

You won't need a Phd or a engineering degree to understand where I'm getting at. Just simple common sense will suffice.

You look at the middle diagram which shows the crest gate lowered to allow storm water to go into the ocean. The pumps in the barrage are not used in this situation. The gate which has been retaining water is lowered to allow fresh water to flow into the ocean. Can someone tell me how this alleviates floods? When the barrage did not exist, water flowed unhindered into the ocean. Now we have to wait for the crest gates to open...and when they are fully open the passage for the water is much smaller than before when the barrage did not exist. When the gates are closed there is a lot of back pressure under heavy rainfall causing water to accumulate in the drainage system behind the barrage. It was reported that the crest gates were lowered during the recent floods so we did not face the situation where the sea level was higher than the fresh water level i.e. the pumps were not used during the recent floods.

I can understand that the barrage can block water from the sea when tide rises but I really can't understand how the barrage 'alleviates flood' when rainfall is heavy and the fresh water level rises above sea level. Can someone explain to me how having the barrage helps (compared with not having it)?

Marina Barrage and the floods....

LATER UPDATE: NCMP Slyvia Lim (Worker's Party) asked about the role of the Marina Barrage in the recent floods.

Ms Lim had asked the minister to clarify what she termed as 'confusing statements' in the media about the role of the barrage in the floods, pointing out that PUB's Chief Executive Officer Khoo Teng Chye had earlier said it was not to be blamed for the June 16 flooding along Orchard Road. When opened to great fanfare two years ago, the $226 million Marina Barrage was being touted as the solution to relieve flash floods in low-lying areas around the city. Explaining the role of the barrage, Dr Yaacob said it played three main roles, that of a freshwater reservoir, to prevent floods as well as for recreational activities. During a rain storm, seven pumps and nine crest gates at the barrage are used interchangeably to release water out to sea depending on the prevailing tidal levels and predictions based on statistical modelling.[Link]

Dr. Yaacoob basically stuck to the explanation that the 16 June 2010 Orchard Rd flood was caused by 2 bursts of heavy downpour 30 minutes apart- 100mm of rainfall within 2 hours and clogged drains were the causes. This explanation is not satisfactory because Orchard Road area had 2 floods after 16 June after PUB said it will monitor drains for debris and rainfall was not as intense. The govt will look at look at widening Stamford canal to prevent future floods....this again is already behind the curve because there were many other places that were flooded 2 days ago Upper Thomson, Bukit Timah, Stevens Rd, Orchard Road, Cresent Road, Bedok and Sims Ave[Link]....a lot more has to be down all over Singapore.

UPDATE : I did a quick check on the Internet and found that the construction of barrages around the world to prevent or control flooding very often leads to increased flooding as an unintended consequence[Check for yourself here]. The reason is water flow (fluid dynamics) is highly complex and is often not amendable to analysis. One hint that something has gone wrong is areas that don't normally flood starts flooding (think Orchard Road). When the big flood in Orchard Road first occurred, the PUB quickly put out a statement that it was caused by debris and would be worse if the Marina Barrage was not there. Now that we have 3(?) other floods since then and floods recurring at Orchard Road at much lower rainfall than the earlier one, I think it is time for them to check all the possibilities not just the ones that absolve the govt from blame and conveniently lead to conclusions that nothing needs to be done.

"The Marina Barrage is the result of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s vision nearly two decades ago when he envisaged damming the mouth of the Marina Channel to create a freshwater reservoir" - PUB Website

A popular hypothesis has emerged among Singaporeans that the Marina Barage is a possible cause of the floods. I'm not an expert in floods so I cannot say with any certainty if this hypothesis is true. Remember a few weeks ago when Orchard Road became flooded, the govt quickly came out with an explanation that it was due to a clogged drain and that PUB will be monitoring the drains closely[Link]. How then do they account for the floods that came after that one? Orchard Road has been flooded a few times since then. The govt' has lost credibility due the flood issue and they will lose more if they don't come up with a good explanation and long term solution soon. Be it climate change, drainage or the Marina Barage, Singaporeans need to know what is going on and that there is a plan and solution in place that will prevent these damaging floods. Singaporeans are not so reasonable to expect 100 new drains to be constructed by tomorrow but they have to start working on the solution ASAP....how else can the govt answer to those whose goods, cars and homes have been damaged in recent weeks.

Why do so many Singaporeans think the Marina Barrage is the culprit?

The Marina Barrage (Chinese:滨海堤坝) is a dam in Singapore built across the mouth of the bay, between Marina East and Marina South. It was officially opened on 1 November 2008. [Wikipedia]

Here is an air picture of the barrage:





Another picture:



When the Marina Barrage was opened, it was said that it can be used for "flood control". The barrage has steel gates that separate the sea water from the fresh water. The barrage can prevent rising sea tide from flooding the island - but the problem is water flow in the other direction from the island to the sea. During heavy rainfall, the steel gates are opened to allow the storm water to flow into the sea. According to the hypothesis, herein lies the problem, in the past without the barrage, storm water flows freely into the ocean but with the barrage, this flow of water is impeded by the structure causing a back pressure leading to rising water levels on the island.

Netizens and ordinary Singaporeans do not have the data or expertise to rigorously prove this hypothesis. Only the govt and its experts can come up with rigorous explanations. I highlighted this popular hypothesis only to show the need for the govt to step forward and explain what is going on. The public generally don't accept "once in 50 years" and "debris in the drain" type of convenient (convenient for the govt to do nothing) explanations which now look rather ridicious given the frequency of these floods.

Some other flooding incidents associated with building of barrages in other countries:

In Kuching : http://anilnetto.com/development-issues/floods-in-kuching/
The Malaysian govt denied it because it was the one that build the barrage.

An official report by the Dutch Government found the construction of a storm surge barrier across the Oosterschelde estuary in the 1980s actually increased the risk of flooding in the area. [Link].