Who said our senior civil servants are just boring bureaucrats? Look at the international coverage about how one such talent acquired French cooking skills from Paris, for mere peanuts.
Reuters: Bureaucrat's cooking trip sparks outcry
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean bureaucrat who wrote about taking his family on an expensive cooking course in France has sparked ire from locals, with some accusing him of extravagance given the city-state is in recession. Tan Yong Soon, a senior official at Singapore's Environment Ministry, learnt to truss chicken and cut vegetables at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris with his wife and son, and wrote about it in the Straits Times newspaper earlier this month. "Taking five weeks leave from work is not as difficult as one thinks. Most times when you are at the top, you think you are indispensable. But if you are a good leader who has built up a good team, it is possible," Tan wrote in the newspaper. His article raised eyebrows given the five-week course for three at the prestigious French cooking school cost more than S$46,000 (US$30,930).
You can read the rest at the Reuters website.
Seah Chiang Nee of Littlespeck.com also wrote about it in his column in Malaysia's The Star newspaper:
Seah Chiang Nee: Widened by hard times
Excerpt:
A GOVERNMENT elite has stirred ripples by talking of his expensive cooking lessons in France, revealing how hard times are deepening class differences in Singapore. Inadvertently creating controversy was the permanent secretary at the Environment and Water Resources Ministry, one of the highest ranking civil servants. Tan Yong Soon had related how he had spent S$46,000 for himself, his wife and son for a five-day trip to learn fine French cooking. In ordinary times, this leisurely – but rather insensitive – account would not have amounted to anything much but these days are, of course, far from normal.
Read the rest of the column at Littlespeck.com.
Funny, I didn't read about this outrage in the Straits Times leh.
