There's alot of internal politics in the civil service especially at the higher echelons, or those near the superscale grades. The scholars are paid lots to hold the fort, those who are not scholars fight and step on one another to get close to the top. Eg, force out mid-career switchers, unco-operative, withold information etc. Some managers even remove your job duties to remove you altogether by passing the jobs to vendors/private businesses. So who does the work? The private sector. Of course, such things also happen in the private sector...but if you think about it, these people are taking taxpayer's monies!

My personal take is, Singapore is a country where the government employs people to keep itself as government by hiring many people and paying them tons to keep their 'loyalty'. Try removing their salaries and these 'parasites' will start an exodus.

Don't even think about patriotism. We should be glad that the people here are happy with their lives. Otherwise don't even think that people are going to keep quiet while you collect gold coins in your backyard.

Don't think people don't know, people just don't want to bother.