Who: National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan.

What did he say that was so funny? He said this in parliament yesterday (Jan. 29, 2015):

"A very popular Chinese opera: Butterfly Lovers, Liang Zhu. It described a period in old China when girls, unfortunately, no matter how talented are not allowed to join schools. So there was this young, beautiful, talented young lady, Zhu Ying Tai, who wanted to study. So she disguised herself as a boy (at this moment, camera cuts to Lee Lilian. We don't know why) and succeeded in attending the school for two years. And nobody, because people just assume that girls won't turn up. And because they made that assumption, only to discover it later. So on hindsight "why didn't you know?" So they thought this one looks a bit girlish but turns out to be a butterf... to be a girl. So it's a similar situation here that the officers assessing the tender just assume that it must be a company affiliated to some religious organisation."

Butterfly Lovers? That's right. That tragic Chinese love story where a couple couldn't be together as humans but reincarnated into butterflies, never to be separated again.

Why can't he use the Mulan analogy? Easier for us to understand because Disney adapted it. Sure, whatever rocks your boat but we think Minister Khaw is not a Disney person.

Erm okay... What's his point? His point was that people assume that Zhu Ying Tai was a dude when in actual fact she was a "young, beautiful, talented" babe. And that the entire Sengkang columbarium saga was a case of mistaken identity. Isn't the Mulan analogy better?

So he meant that the developer tried to smoke the ministry? Life Corporation, the winner of the tender, did state on their website that the tender “represents an important progression for LFC’s business model of providing a full suite premium funeral service”.

What else did Minister Khaw discover?

Well, Minister Khaw said:

"We now understand that the winning tenderer for this site, Eternal Pure Land, is actually a private company without any religious affiliation.

From what we know, the plan of the company is to run a commercial columbarium on the site. This is not in line with our plan for the place-of-worship site."

So we should be glad that the minister will conduct a review of the tender process? Yes. This is the positive change that resulted from the whole saga.

Minister Khaw also said that "the officers assessing the tender just assumed that it must be a company affiliated to some religious organisation". Oh no...

How can the civil servants involved in the tender just assume? Remember one of the things that your BMT sergeant used to shout at you?

Especially when it involves millions of dollars? The winning bid was $5.2 million, $1.2 million more than the second highest!

Not their money what. Higher bidder wins, no? Good that they helped the government earn more money.

But they must still do their due diligence on the organisations. A quick Google search on Eternal Pure Land would have highlighted that it is a private company. A chat during the tender meeting would have indicated that Eternal Pure Land (EPL) is not affiliated to any religious organisation.

So EPL isn't affiliated to any religious organisation? Yup, that was the question asked by plucky resident Sharon Toh.

And she is probably not trained in assessing tender documents.

Sharon Toh: If that is the case, is Life Corp/Eternal Pure Land registered as a religious organisation in Singapore?

Simon Hoo: Eternal Pure Land is not a registered religious group.

You can read the whole exchange here ("Sengkang resident-turned-heroine Sharon Toh asks the hard questions about Sengkang columbarium").

Guess Sengkang MP Lam Pin Min is happy with the decision to allocate the Sengkang site to its original intent?

Yes. In a Channel NewsAsia interview, Lam said that he is "pleased with the announcement by Minister Khaw that this particular piece of land, that has been identified for a Chinese temple, will not have a commercial columbarium."

Wait a minute. Didn't MP Lam say something different previously? Something like this has been done before? Excellent memory. In a Straits Times report on Jan 4, Lam said “URA guidelines did not restrict the type of company that can develop a religious institution and he understood from the URA that it has been done before”.

But I read the news today and Khaw said something different? According to The Straits Times, the Minister said that until the recent case in Sengkang, the Government had never awarded a place-of-worship site to a company that was not affiliated to a religious organisation.

So how now? We don't really know.

But seriously, why Butterfly Lovers?

Related article:

Aussie accent blamed for Sengkang Columbarium confusion

Like what you read? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated.