SAF acts after email complaint
PM's son among four reprimanded
Lee U-Wenu-wen@mediacorp.com.sg
A SINGAPORE Armed Forces (SAF) officer has been charged with and reprimanded for emailing a letter of complaint, which he had addressed to Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, to hundreds of other military personnel.
The letter, which also found its way into cyberspace and prompted numerous postings on forums and blogs, was written by 2nd Lieutenant (2LT) Li Hongyi (picture) — the second son of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The 20-year-old signals platoon commander accused one of his superiors – a regular officer with the rank of Lieutenant — of going Absent Without Official Leave (Awol) on two occasions.
2LT Li detailed the circumstances in a more than 2,000 word letter, sent out on June 28, via the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) intranet system.
The email was also addressed to the Chief of Defence Force and the Chief of Army among others.
A Public Service Commission Overseas Merit Scholar, who is due to disrupt to read economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2LT Li stated that he had reported the matter to the Lieutenant's supervisors but no disciplinary action had been taken.
Last night, Colonel Benedict Lim, Mindef's director Public Affairs, said in a statement to Today: "Arising from 2LT Li's complaint, an investigation was conducted and appropriate disciplinary action has been meted out to the officers who are the subject of the complaint.
"The officer, who was found to have been absent without leave will be court-martialled and two supervising officers have been issued letters of warning for poor judgment in administering inappropriate disciplinary action."
However, Mindef also punished 2LT Li — pointing out that there were proper channels within the SAF to address grievances or concerns.
"2LT Li was found to have contravened the General Orders of Mindef by broadcasting his letter of complaint to many other servicemen — almost all of whom were neither directly under his command, nor in an official capacity where they could deal with the matters contained in his letter of complaint.
"2LT Li has been formally charged and administered a reprimand after a summary trial," added Col Lim.
Stressing that the military takes a serious view of misconduct by any serviceman, Col Lim explained: "To maintain organisational discipline, all SAF servicemen with complaints or grievances should take them up through proper channels for redress, to ensure due process and to protect confidential information.
"All complaints, which are not anonymous are investigated and dealt with properly."
It is understood that after 2LT Li's email found its way into cyberspace, another message was sent by one of his superior officers instructing soldiers not to circulate the email.
Soldiers in his unit were also briefed about the importance of following the "chain of command".
In his email, 2LT Li, who was one of more than 400 officers commissioned last December after
a 10-month Officer Cadet Course, questioned the "quality control of officers" in the SAF and the process by which senior officers were selected.
Calling the Lieutenant's continued service in the SAF "an embarrassment", he criticised the decisions of the battalion headquarters in accepting "lower standards of discipline".
He also wrote: "I was told that one of the reasons this was so, was that they did not wish to ruin his career with a summary trial.
"However, the SAF is not a charity organisation and does not owe anyone a career."
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In addition, the original email by Li Hong Yi also claimed that the Officer-in-Charge failed to dish out the appropriate disiplinary measure against the Lieutenant was either gross negilence or corruption. In his own words from the email:
PM's son among four reprimanded
Lee U-Wenu-wen@mediacorp.com.sg
A SINGAPORE Armed Forces (SAF) officer has been charged with and reprimanded for emailing a letter of complaint, which he had addressed to Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, to hundreds of other military personnel.
The letter, which also found its way into cyberspace and prompted numerous postings on forums and blogs, was written by 2nd Lieutenant (2LT) Li Hongyi (picture) — the second son of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The 20-year-old signals platoon commander accused one of his superiors – a regular officer with the rank of Lieutenant — of going Absent Without Official Leave (Awol) on two occasions.
2LT Li detailed the circumstances in a more than 2,000 word letter, sent out on June 28, via the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) intranet system.
The email was also addressed to the Chief of Defence Force and the Chief of Army among others.
A Public Service Commission Overseas Merit Scholar, who is due to disrupt to read economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2LT Li stated that he had reported the matter to the Lieutenant's supervisors but no disciplinary action had been taken.
Last night, Colonel Benedict Lim, Mindef's director Public Affairs, said in a statement to Today: "Arising from 2LT Li's complaint, an investigation was conducted and appropriate disciplinary action has been meted out to the officers who are the subject of the complaint.
"The officer, who was found to have been absent without leave will be court-martialled and two supervising officers have been issued letters of warning for poor judgment in administering inappropriate disciplinary action."
However, Mindef also punished 2LT Li — pointing out that there were proper channels within the SAF to address grievances or concerns.
"2LT Li was found to have contravened the General Orders of Mindef by broadcasting his letter of complaint to many other servicemen — almost all of whom were neither directly under his command, nor in an official capacity where they could deal with the matters contained in his letter of complaint.
"2LT Li has been formally charged and administered a reprimand after a summary trial," added Col Lim.
Stressing that the military takes a serious view of misconduct by any serviceman, Col Lim explained: "To maintain organisational discipline, all SAF servicemen with complaints or grievances should take them up through proper channels for redress, to ensure due process and to protect confidential information.
"All complaints, which are not anonymous are investigated and dealt with properly."
It is understood that after 2LT Li's email found its way into cyberspace, another message was sent by one of his superior officers instructing soldiers not to circulate the email.
Soldiers in his unit were also briefed about the importance of following the "chain of command".
In his email, 2LT Li, who was one of more than 400 officers commissioned last December after
a 10-month Officer Cadet Course, questioned the "quality control of officers" in the SAF and the process by which senior officers were selected.
Calling the Lieutenant's continued service in the SAF "an embarrassment", he criticised the decisions of the battalion headquarters in accepting "lower standards of discipline".
He also wrote: "I was told that one of the reasons this was so, was that they did not wish to ruin his career with a summary trial.
"However, the SAF is not a charity organisation and does not owe anyone a career."
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In addition, the original email by Li Hong Yi also claimed that the Officer-in-Charge failed to dish out the appropriate disiplinary measure against the Lieutenant was either gross negilence or corruption. In his own words from the email:
"Even if you attribute the lack of punishment to extreme leniency, the decision to not inform the battalion is even more suspicious. Especially in a _____ unit such as _________ where the importance of being on duty cannot be over emphasized, to not even inform the battalion of the occurrence is to send a signal that there is nothing wrong with his actions. If it was unintentional it shows gross negligence for something which is clearly an important matter, and if intentional shows a level of corruption that I need not elaborate on. "
Well said indeed.
Suppose Li Hong Yi wasn't the PM's son. Just a nobody. Would that person have dare to email Teo Chee Hean and hundreds of other SAF personel? In the first place, many NSF would not even have an email account. What are the avenues from which they can they seek redress when they have suffered injustice? SAF hotline? A complain to the commander of that unit? Will the use of such "proper channels" work? Does the apparant widespread "officers covering for officers" which is the common belief held by all NSFs indicate that such "proper channels" are essentially ineffective?
Let's analyse this from the "everyone seeks to serve his self-interest" pespective. Suppose your Platoon commander, who's a regular in the SAF, commited an error. Perhaps an error such as failing to ensure that you have had 7 hours of sleep, which is an SAF requirement. You are pissed with your officer for depriving you of sleep and decide to lodge a complain against him to the OC, another regular in the SAF. Why in the world would the OC give a damn of your precieved minor complain and sour his friendship and working relationship with his fellow regular by punishing him. How much does an NSF mean to the OC afterall. The NSF would have ORDed in less than 2 years time, whereas the PC could very well be his colleague for years to come. Furthermore if the PC has been displaying outstanding performances in his work, the PC could very well be the OC's superior in the future. The lowly CPL NSF on the other hand is deemed to be of no practical value to the OC.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the OC would most likely brush aside the complains of the NSF.
So the next step that you, as a rule abiding soldier can take is to lodge a complain to the next higher ranked officer in the hierachy, perhaps the officer in charge of that unit. As in the previous case, the officers are highly likely to cover-up for each other. The officer might even make veiled threats to you, intimidate you into dropping the complains and fall into line as a good soldier should. You might even be warned that should you continue to cause trouble to them, you might find youself facing a trumped up charge. That's rather easy to do given the current system SAF has in place. An officer recommends a charge against you to the Disiplinary officer and viola, you find yourself in Detention Barracks.
One would wonder about the following:
1) If the above scenario is likely to happen, doesn't it imply that such corrupt practices in SAF is widespread given the ease of supressing complains and the presence of a situation in which there is a conflict of interest?
2) Why isn't that control procedures which ensure such corrupt practices do not happen? As Li Hong Yi puts it
"But one thing that cannot be tolerated is a reputation for having bad leaders. Such a reputation would compromise Singapore's defence credibility far more than using refurbished tanks or old training manuals."
3) And if the credibility of Singapore's defence has been shredded, someone ought to be held responsible. After all $10.7 billion a year has been spent on defence. And what we get is an Army with no credibity? Surely not.
Looks like both of daddy's feet have been shot.
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