Law Minister K Shanmugam today (Nov 16) unwittingly shot his colleague Minister Khaw Boon Wan in the back revealing that the under-performing Transport Minister did not volunteer for the S$1.76 million-a-year ministerial job.
“In 2015, he was asked if he could go to MOT. I remember him saying to us, his colleagues : “ In 2011, I volunteered to go to MND. Now I am not volunteering. But I will go where I am needed.””
The Law Minister also mocked former Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew who resigned due to his failure to handle train breakdowns, and Minister Khaw Boon Wan for the increasing engineering failures from flooded train tunnel to faulty signalling programming system:
“I am confident Minister Khaw will sort things out. He went into MOT in October 2015. Since then there have been significant improvements, building on the good work of his predecessor, Min Lui Tuck Yew. Of especial note, Min Khaw has moved to strengthen the engineering teams.”
Minister K Shanmugam then sarcastically laughed at Minister Khaw Boon Wan’s “1-million” target, calling him “very ambitious”:
“He has set a new target : an MKBF (Mean Kilometres Between Failure) of 1,000,000 train-km by 2020. Very ambitious. But I believe he will be able to achieve it.”