God in the City

There has been a spate of court cases on corruption June. Don't know if this is because of the sweltering temperature. This was preceded by sex cases in May. I wonder what July will bring. One cannot but be impressed by the work rate of the Attorney General's Chambers. Going by these cases (and more to come?), they can look forward to big performance bonuses at the end of the year, particularly if the cases lead to convictions and fines. I am not suggesting for a moment that the AGC has monetary motives in mind when they haul people to court. I am glad that they are doing what they are paid to do - uphold the law of the land and make the point that Singapore is not a place for any sort of hanky-panky.

First they took sex offenders to court. Then they took civil offenders to court. They also took commercial offenders to court. And the latest, they took God to court. Errmmm, let me correct that. They hauled purported servants of God to court in the dying days of June 2012. The city has been set abuzz, and the blogosphere has gone into overdrive to self-righteously condemn one and all, never mind that the courts have not passed judgement at all in most of the cases. But you can't stop people from talking. Yesterday, I was having dinner in a neighbourhood food court. I overhead 1 women passing comment to her 2 companions about Pastor Kong Hee of City Harvest Church living it up in a house in Sentosa Cove. Yep, only the ultra-rich can afford a house in Sentosa Cove. Yeah, the pastor says that the house doesn't belong to him, nada nada nada. Who would believe a person accused of swimming in S$50 million over the last 2 years if not longer? But then these are only allegations. The court process has only just begun, and it is there that the contest of truths will be waged. While the weather has become cooler with the passing of June into July, don't expect the temperature to fall over these cases.

But some things seem to have died down, or at least become less noisy. Discussion of foreign labour, housing and transportation seem to have taken a back seat. Government overseeing these ministries must be relieved. Even the release of the COI report on the SMRT train breakdowns seem to be a non-event. But I suppose we will hear more of this the coming week when Parliament sits to consider this and other issues.

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