Ngiam Tong Dow, 66, who retired from the bureaucracy in 1999, is among a few permanent secretaries who had helped Lee shape today’s Singapore.

“We should open up politically and allow talent to be spread throughout our society so that an alternative leadership can emerge,” Ngiam said when asked by Sunday Times to comment on Singapore’s long-term survival.

It depended, he added, on Lee leaving behind the right legacy.

Ngiam is among the few top bureaucrats who had grown up and bonded well with Malaysia’s first generation of senior civil servants in the early days of the break-up, despite tense bilateral ties. Others include JYM Pillai, Sim Kee Boon, Howe Yoon Chong and Philip Yeo.

Ngiam elaborated: “So far, the People's Action Party's tactic is to put all the scholars into the civil service because it believes the way to retain political power forever is to have a monopoly on talent. To me, that's a very short-term view.”

Currently chairman of HDB Corp, Ngiam said all things by nature must atrophy.

“Unless SM (Senior Minister) Lee allows serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the incumbent elite will just coast along.

“At the first sign of a grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse just like the incumbent Progressive Party to the left-wing PAP onslaught in the late 1950s.

“I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the PAP.”

The first step is to release half the government scholars to the private sector.

“When 10 scholars come home, five should turn to the right and join the public sector or the civil service; the other five should turn to the left and join the private sector.”

These scholars, he told the Sunday Times, should serve their bond to Singapore – not the Government – by working here or for Singapore overseas.

Asked what was his biggest worry about the civil service, Ngiam replied: “The greatest danger is we are flying on auto-pilot. What was once a great policy, we just carry on with more of the same, until reality intervenes.”

Ngiam had spent 44 years in the civil service, and was Singapore’s youngest permanent secretary at the age of 33 in 1970.

“We have been flying on auto-pilot for too long. The MNCs have contributed a lot to Singapore but they are totally unsentimental. The moment you're uncompetitive, they just relocate.

“Take our industrial policy. At the beginning, it was right for us to attract multinationals to Singapore.”

His forthright comments came as a surprise to most Singaporeans, young and old, who generally regard civil servants as quiet doers rather than public articulators.

Ngiam had shown his brilliance to people who worked with him. In public, he had always maintained a low profile.

That he has spoken out in this manner points to several things.

Firstly, he is perturbed enough by what is happening in Singapore, especially in the civil service, to speak out.

Secondly, it confirms a freer political atmosphere in which the authorities encourage people to speak out, even critically, as long as it is in Singapore’s interests.

A third point is his frank reference to Lee Kuan Yew as still the overriding authority in Singapore. All his suggestions are addressed to Lee, not Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

It set off some discussions in Internet chat-sites, with some people wondering whether the government will take action against him.

Asked why Singapore had been on auto-pilot for so long, Ngiam replied: “I suspect we have started to believe our own propaganda.”

He reserved some of his harshest criticisms for the civil service.

“There is also a particular brand of Singapore elite arrogance creeping in. Some civil servants behave like they have a mandate from the emperor. We think we are little Kuan Yews.

“SM Lee has earned his spurs with his fine intellect and international standing. But even Kuan Yew sometimes doesn't behave like Kuan Yew.”

Asked why he was different, Ngiam said it was probably because he had started in the Economic Development Board (which promotes investment) in 1959. It was all about hard foot-slogging work and personal persuasion which taught one to be very humble and patient.

“I learnt to be a supplicant and a professional beggar, instead of a dispenser of favours.

“These days, most civil servants start out administering the law. If I had my way, every administrative officer would start his or her career in the EDB.”

Ngiam’s allegations on the scholarship system, elitism in government and intellectual arrogance reflect what some critics have privately said.

But being an insider with access to the policy-making process, Ngiam is the first to have articulated his thoughts clearly. As a lifelong civil servant, he is not allowed by law to join the ruling People’s Action Party.

His most telling suggestion is for Lee to leave behind a “free politics” legacy by allowing talent to be spread throughout Singapore so that an alternative leadership can emerge.

Singapore is in the midst of a “remaking” exercise that will include restructuring its economy and loosening its political and social environment.

For a whole generation, thousands of parents have been pushing their children towards scoring A’s in their exams to win prestigious government scholarships.

This virtually guarantees them a top-level, high-paying bureaucratic job. The road is long and arduous. Some parents dedicate their lives to help their children achieve it.

I know of someone whose son, who is in lower primary, is in the gifted programme. The father, who holds a master's degree in mathematics, takes leave to help his son prepare for exams.

Asked why, he said he wanted his boy to gain a top political or civil service post through the scholarship trail.

It is a route many take but few succeed. Once there, there is no fear of being retrenched, unlike thousands of other mortals when profits plunge.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com (e-mail: cnseah2000@ littlespeck.com )

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