[Sparta or Athens?]
I really appreciate the skills that I have developed over time. One such skill is to be able to read pages and pages of documents and fully comprehend them. Over the weekend I dropped by Times bookstore and I picked up Ngiam Tong Dow's book titled A mandarin and the making of public policy.

This book presents candid accounts of how the civil service works - the deadlocks, the mistakes and the successes. I am not sure how true or if there was any information deliberately left out. So far I found it to be an honest no-holds-barred account of the Singapore civil service.

One pertinent point is on the future of Singapore - whether we want to be a Sparta or an Athens. Does Singapore want to emulate Athens, a city with unique talents and individuals, and one that fails but ends up successful in the end or a Sparta - a city that only the best survive and the best selects the best. Ngiam Tong Dow describes Sparta as an elitist model. Truth to be told, politics is about being elitist. That is the elitist model that the best is selected to govern. Further in the elitist model, one powerful person makes all the decisions and calls the shots. Does that happen in Singapore? My answer is "I really don't know".

Once I started on a few pages, I was hooked. I read about how in one instance some Ministers had made wrong judgements in their roles. I won't say who but you have to read the book to find out.

The book also shares about the earlier and respectible leaders and their characteristics - Hon Sui Sen, Goh Keng Swee and many more.

One exciting anecdote is on the over-building of HDB flats which had cost the Government huge deficits. Another is touches on the complacency of the civil service/servants.

Key milestones that attributed to Singapore's current succees are also documented - from the implementation of GST (they called it the bitter medicine), changes in CPF contributions and the economic decisions which led to growth.

Whether you are an opposition supporter, a politician, a public policy student, an economics student or one that just loves to devour the written word, Ngiam Tong Dow's writings have that appeal.

The text is simple to read and easily digestible. And it took less than three hours for me to finish reading the book at the bookstore.

Great wisdom from a man whose carreer spanned various sectors in the civil service and statutory boards. Whether you want to believe it is another story altogether.