Petition for President Nathan to request for full disclosure of Temasek and GIC's accounts

To:  President of Singapore, H.E. Mr S R Nathan

Dear President Nathan,

We are writing to you as citizens of Singapore and stakeholders of the country’s reserves.

Just this week, we were told in Parliament by Senior Minister of State for Finance, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua that Temasek’s assets had lost some $58 billion in value since March 2008. (While no details were given for GIC, another report suggested that GIC’s assets might have lost even more - up to $200 billion - refer “Temasek takes severe hit”, The Nation, 9 Feb 2009, http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/02/09/headlines/headlines_30095260.php)

If The Nation’s figures on GIC are accurate, between both these two Sovereign Wealth Funds (”SWFs”), they had managed to lose some $258 billion of stakeholders’ money under their management thus far. (This is equivalent to losing some $70,879 of each citizen’s stake based on Wiki’s 3.64 million Singapore citizens)

As the Elected President, one of your primary duties is to safeguard the country’s and stakeholders’ reserves via the “second key”. Therefore, you are entrusted with the responsibility to ensure the stakeholders’ reserves are prudently managed by the incumbent government - for the future of Singaporeans and generations to come.

Clearly, a grave mistake and repeatedly wrong judgements have been made by the government (via these 2 SWFs of Temasek and GIC) in the $258 billion loss which would include the billions invested in failed or failing banks like Citigroup, Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America), Barclays, UBS, etc.

The question we’d like to find out is:

(1). Were they potentially misled by the banks into which they had invested ?;

or

(2). Did they go in with their eyes open, ie. knowing that there were billions or even trillions of toxic assets on the banks’ books ?

If it’s (1) above, the government, via Temasek and/or GIC, as shareholders of these potentially insolvent banks, should consider taking legal action/joining in the class action against these banks and/or their officials, shouldn’t they?

But if it’s (2) above, then the government owes its duty to its citizens and stakeholders to come clean and explain why it went in to invest in these banks despite knowing the extent of toxic assets on their books - with a high likelihood of the investments totally wiped out.

Since we do not expect the government to volunteer the information, can you, as the President of Singapore and the de-facto “guardian” of the reserves, require the incumbent government to disclose such important information to its citizens and what actions have been taken or are to be taken so that such mistakes are learnt and not repeated in the future?

Please also take note of the polls conducted here about the government handling of the Temasek debacle:

http://wayangparty.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/polls-on-the-temasek-debacle/

Adapted from Mr Jeffrey's Ho letter which was first published here:

http://wayangparty.com/?p=5100

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Petition for President Nathan to request for full disclosure of Temasek and GIC's accounts Petition to President of Singapore, H.E. Mr S R Nathan was created by and written by Eugene Yeo (yeoeugenect@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.