May 30, 2010
Dr Goh's lessons in life and economics
Outside Singapore, China was not the only country that recognised the late deputy prime minister Dr Goh Keng Swee as a brilliant and practical development economist.
There were other countries that sought his expertise well before China did. In 1980, then President J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka appointed Dr Goh to advise him on his country's economic development.
Sri Lanka was then in the initial years of implementing free market economic policies after discarding the previous administration's heavily subsidised social programmes.
Around the same time, there was increasing pressure from developed countries on economically successful developing countries to share the burden of helping poor countries to develop.
Singapore responded and 'adopted' the Maldives, one of the world's 20 poorest countries, consisting of a chain of small islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
As a young officer in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, I was asked to assist Dr Goh in these two projects. Over a period of three months, I worked closely with Dr Goh, doing and discussing detailed research work with him before setting out on our 'field trips' to have formal meetings with leaders of the two governments.
The man and his ideas
Three months of working up close and personal with Dr Goh gave me invaluable insight into the man and his ideas. He was pragmatic, not dogmatic. He did not simply prescribe the formula of Singapore's success through job-creating labour intensive industrialisation to Sri Lanka.
Instead, he saw value in enhancing the agricultural sector through the cultivation of key cash crops to supplement the foreign exchange earnings from tea exports.
When he was told that there was no more land for this, he looked at me and exclaimed 'love's labour lost' for the research work that I had done on rubber planting.
He quickly moved on without any hint of regret.
He urged president Jayewardene to conserve hard-earned foreign exchange earnings by slashing the huge subsidies on basic foodstuffs like rice, flour and sugar, and large wasteful projects that did not generate earnings.
The formal report that was submitted to the president contained several key recommendations but the really crucial ones were found in a personal and confidential covering letter. Dr Goh did not mince his words, warned of the dangers of certain populist policies and cautioned against their promoters.
It made for fascinating reading and revealed the political side of Dr Goh. I wondered if the public would ever get to read it.
Simple ideas
He believed in the power of simple, practical ideas. When I suggested to him that free market policies might not work in simple societies where the folks would not readily respond to economic incentives because of their beliefs and lifestyle, he asked me to take along a radio, play it in front of them, arouse their curiosity and fascinate them.
'Then they will want to own it,' he said, 'and will work to earn money to buy it', or words to that effect.
The wordsmith
Dr Goh was known for his precision in his choice of words. When we were putting the finishing touches to the economic report to the president, he asked me whether the report should be 'from' or 'by' him. I replied that the word 'from' implied an act of delivery.
'Then we use 'by',' was his quick response.
It was a bright Sunday morning when we drove to the president's house to present our report to him. As our motorcade negotiated its way through the coconut estate along narrow pathways that led to the president's residence, I felt very much like a DHL delivery boy and it then dawned on me that 'from' would have been a more appropriate word.
Second nature
I saw the personal side of the man too. President SR Nathan told us that Dr Goh would take along soap flakes to wash his own underwear on overseas trips, so averse was he to spending money. I certainly vouch for it as I personally saw his underwear hanging to dry in the bathroom. And it was no ordinary bathroom, mind you. It was a bathroom in the Presidential Palace, or the Queen's House as it was known when Sri Lanka was still a British colony. A Royal Bathroom, no less. He could have left it to the Royal Housekeeper to do the washing, but he didn't. And it was not money that held him back. Habit of thrift had become second nature.
Fun side
It wasn't all work and no play with Dr Goh. He took delight in simple pleasures. The Maldives were an idyllic respite. He wanted to go fishing. We took a boat far out to sea in the deep Indian Ocean. We were warned that there could be sharks lurking around. But Dr Goh was fearless, like a child. As our boat sped and cut through the waters, he took in the breeze and smiled with his eyes closed. Occasionally they opened up and Dr Goh would chuckle as he saw me struggling with my fishing rod.
I felt a tug on my rod and quickly started to pull it in. It wasn't easy as there was a struggle at the other end. I knew then that I had caught something and it couldn't be small. When I finally pulled it up, it was quite a catch, a large 15kg garoupa! Dr Goh was thrilled; he slapped his thighs with both his hands and laughed heartily. That night, we cooked our catch and ate it.
It was extra-delicious, with the flavour enhanced by the sauce of three months of love's labour.
Dr Goh explained his Machiavellian approach to governance in simple graphic terms: a man works for you either out of fear or out of love; if it is out of fear, you are in charge but if out of love, he is in charge as he can take his love away.
It is better that he works for you out of fear so that you will be in charge. How colourfully put to a young, impressionable mind.
Dr Goh gave himself less credit than he deserved. He underestimated his own charming ability to inspire those around him to give of their best without fear or favour.
As a young rookie not yet wised up to the power structure, I had no fear of him or of any other person in the Government. It was not fear that drove me to work like a slave for him. Rather, it was admiration for the man's superior intellect and a mutual love for the subject of economics.
The writer was with the Singapore Government Administrative Service from 1978 to 1990, when he left to join the financial sector where he worked in investment banking and fund management. He read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. He is now an independent financial adviser.
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