I have been thinking hard. It is time for Singapore to make such scandals a thing of the past - NKF scandal should never be allowed to repeat.
To understand how to prevent another NKF incident, I studied the land of scandals - Korea. Everyday, a new scandal is exposed, the latest being that of the prominent cloning scientist. You know why Korea has so many scandals? Its media is fearless and independent, the people are born protesters who question everything. Learning from Korea, we have to put in the following safeguards to prevent more NKFs from happening:
1. Control of the media. In a sense we already have a very good system here, the SPH would not have brought down Durai, had he not been so arrogant to sue them. If he didn't sue them, he would have lasted another 20 years, nobody would have expose him. The Korean system is terrible, with investigative reporters mining for the truth tirelessly to expose wrong doings. I feel sorry for the Korean people to have to suffer scandals so often - it must be painful for them to find the cloning man they respect so much was a cheat.
2. Prohibit Protests. In Korea, many wrong doings were exposed when protesters demand actions against big businesses called Chaebols. We should be thankful that protests are rare and prohibited in Singapore, however, there is a loophole that allows protests of 4 people or less to occur. Although the riot police will turn up, the protestors cannot be presecuted under the law. We should amend the law so that these people can be jailed, otherwise, they may increase the risk of scandals happening in blissful Singapore.
3. Build Trust. We should have a "Build Trust" campaign after the NKF affair boil over. So that Singaporean's trust in their public institutions is increased. The "Build Trust" campaign should explain all the safeguards already put in place by our capable govt, so the people don't have to demand transparency or probes.
4. Strengthen Legislation. Such as the OSA (Official Secrets Act) to prevent information from leaking out. We can consider death penalty for those who leak official information.
5. Prevent of Freedom of Information. You look at the high frequency of scandals in Western societies. This is due in part to Western Liberal Democracy ideas such as FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). These are ideas we should prevent in our society as they might cause scandals to be exposed. Thank god we don't have such legislation as the FOIA.
In conclusion, Singapore has been relatively scandal free because we have all the safeguards in place to prevent NKF type affairs from happening. I wished Durai had never sued SPH and caused all this trouble. Singaporeans would not have their happy lucky lives disrupted by this whole affair. Straits Times had to dedicate more than 10 pages of its papers to the NKF today instead of publicising the accomplishments of the PAP govt. We should however be thankful that the NKF affair is probably one-off, with many safeguards in place we can sleep tight that odds of another scandal being exposed is minimal.