16th of July – Good morning. Woke up at 5 am this morning, still adjusting a bit to the jetlag. Yesterday was a somewhat busy day with the publication of the PAC report on the RM19.4 billion GST issue and the tabling of the new Auditor General reports.
In addition to Parliament work, I was invited by the Singaporean government to give a talk to a group of visiting civil servants at the new Ibis Hotel from 5.30 pm to 7 pm.
Attending the event, were the next generation director level civil servants of Singapore. The delegation was led by the DG of Education, Mr. Lai Chung Han. I spoke for 20 minutes and did a Q&A for an hour, moderated by Hui Chuen from the Singapore High Commission. This is probably the 3rd time I have been invited to give such a talk in the last 5 years.
Lastly, I dropped by to see the Speaker at lunch time, to brief him on the NY trip, since I represented Parlimen Malaysia, on his behalf.
I also dropped by to see Kak Wan in her Parliament office to catch up and talk about universal basic income and Rutger Bergman’s book, Utopia for Realists. She had asked me about my views of the book three days ago, while I was in NY. I had read the book last year and thought well of it. I gave her a short explanation and opined that at best, we can try to study and adapt some 30% of the social justice policies he wrote about.
