Hoe Yeong Loke - Speaking Truth To Power: Singapores Pioneer Public Servants

The Singapore Story by the History-makers Volume 1

SPEAKING

TRUTH TO POWER

SINGAPORES PIONEER PUBLIC SERVANTS

The Singapore Story by the History-makers

Print ISSN: 2661-4871
Online ISSN: 2661-488X

Series Editor: Loke Hoe Yeong

This book series showcases Singapores history, through the words of the key figures themselves. Drawing on the records of the Oral History Centre at the National Archives of Singapore, this series presents transcripts of interviews with leaders from the fields of public service, politics, business, among others, with extensive annotations on biographical and historical background that make for easy reading. The series aims to serve as a valuable resource for future research, while also making the material accessible to a wider audience.

Published:

The Singapore Story by the History-makers Volume 1

SPEAKING

TRUTH TO POWER

SINGAPORES PIONEER PUBLIC SERVANTS

EDITED BY

LOKE HOE YEONG

Published by

World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224

USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601

UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The Singapore Story by the History-makers Vol. 1
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER
Singapores Pioneer Public Servants

Copyright 2020 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher.

For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher.

ISBN 978-981-121-151-5
ISBN 978-981-121-212-3 (pbk)

For any available supplementary material, please visit

Desk Editors: Daniele Lee/Jiang Yulin

Typeset by Stallion Press
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Printed in Singapore

About the Book

It is said that the duty of public servants is to speak truth to power to give honest, sound and sometimes unpopular advice to political leaders. Underneath the narrative of the Singapore story, as personified by Lee Kuan Yew and the first-generation leaders, lie the lesser-known tales of dedicated public servants in the nation-building process. Singapores development cannot be fully understood without considering the role of those in public service during the transition to independence from the 1950s to 60s.

Featuring oral history interviews from the National Archives of Singapore with 11 pioneer public servants, Speaking Truth to Power: Singapores Pioneer Public Servants reveals first-hand, personal accounts of the civil services transition from the colonial era, their relationship with the political leaders, and how Singapores economic development was driven by sound public administration in those critical years. The annotated interviews make for an easily readable format for researchers and general audiences alike.

About the Editor

Loke Hoe Yeong is a London-based analyst and researcher on politics and international affairs. Formerly an Associate Fellow at the European Union Centre in Singapore, National University of Singapore, he has published widely in academic journals and the media on a range of subjects from Europe-Asia relations to Southeast Asian politics and public policy, besides being a guest commentator on international affairs for TV.

He is the author of Let The People Have Him Chiam See Tong, The Early Years, a biography of one of Singapores longest-serving politicians which was shortlisted for the 2016 Singapore Literature Prize, and The First Wave, a history of the opposition in post-independence Singapore. He holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Contents

Wee Chong Jin
The first local Chief Justice

Goh Koh Pui
Chairman of the Port of Singapore Authority

Abdul Wahab Ghows
Solicitor-General and High Court Judge

Hedwig Anuar
Director of the National Library

Kwa Soon Bee
Pioneer of Singapores healthcare system

Alan Choe
The Housing and Development Boards first architect-planner, and founder of the Urban Redevelopment Authority

Chan Chin Bock
Chairman of the Economic Development Board

J. Y. Pillay
The man behind Singapore Airlines

Ngiam Tong Dow
The maverick Perm Sec

Tommy Koh
Singapores representative at the United Nations

Winston Choo
The first Chief of Defence Force

Editors Note

The transcripts in the book have been edited for grammar and for easier reading, while preserving the interviewees personal speaking styles as far as possible in order to avoid misrepresentation. This largely adheres to the principles of editing oral history transcripts as in the Chicago Manual of Style. The original transcripts may be viewed at the Oral History Interviews @ Archives Online website of the National Archives of Singapore.

The transcripts have been arranged in the order of the interviewees date of birth, so that there is a more chronological presentation of the various aspects of Singapores history which they discuss.

While we respect the narratives recounted by our interviewees, we recognise that all oral history accounts, by their very nature, are personal, experiential and interpretive. They are founded on the memories, perceptions and viewpoints of individuals. While all reasonable attempts have been taken to avoid inaccuracies, the excerpts of the interviews found in this book should not be understood as statements of fact endorsed by the National Archives of Singapore, an institution of the National Library Board; the publisher; or the editor.

Photo Credits

The publisher acknowledges the following for their kind permission to reproduce photos in this book:

Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

The ACS Echo

J. Y. Pillay

Tommy Koh

Winston Choo

Introduction

By extension, Singapores development cannot be fully understood without considering the role of the batch of public servants who served during Singapores transition to independence from the 1950s to the 1960s.

The public policy successes of Singapore have made it of outsized interest to governments, policymakers, academics and the general public around the world. There are many publications on the current state of Singapores civil service, including publications from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. However, there is much less material on the evolution of the Singapore civil service as we know it today, especially in comparison to that on Singapores political leaders around the time of independence. Perhaps this is to be attributed in part to the famed qualities of reticence and impartiality among civil servants in many national traditions, who have always preferred to serve quietly in the background than to upstage their ministers in public view. (That said, a number of the PAP Old Guard had a background in the colonial-era civil service before entering politics, most notably Goh Keng Swee, and their stories are better known than those who remained in the civil service for the entirety of their careers.)