I am seriously concerned that the PM has breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct by using his Official Press Secretary to write a letter to the Economist newspaper defending the PM's private defamation suit against the blogger Roy Ngerng. This states:
"4.3 A Minister must not direct or request a civil servant to do anything or perform any function that may conflict with the Singapore Civil Service's core values of incorruptibility, impartiality, integrity and honesty.
He should respect the duty of civil servants to remain neutral in all political matters and matters of public controversy."
Neutral? This is quite apart from the fact of whether it is right for the PM to use a civil servant paid by the taxpayer to assist him in his private capacity and not his official one.
He is suing Roy as a private individual and yet he uses a state employee, paid by you the tax payer, to write to the foreign press defending his personal matter. I believe the principal has been established that State Institutions cannot sue a private individual so why can a state employees be put to work on it. Is the Press Secretary working for us, who put the government in place as public servants or is the Press Secretary working for LHL as a private indivuiudal. It needs clarifying.
Source: Kenneth Jeyaretnam's Facebook