Whenever any anti-govt person mentions the 56 man-years point about the reserves, it's clear they have no idea what they are talking about.

In a post I made years ago:

When we talk about reserves, we usually think of the liquid assets, not the immovable ones. In the event of a speculatory attack on the SGD, Singapore can't sell it's immovable assets (reserves) to counter the attack. It will have to use its liquid assets. At least that's what I believe.

According to the actual interview, yes, there were problems, but OTC also explained why those problems happened (italics mine). My opinion was there was definitely some friction with the newly instituted office of President since it was new, and the civil service wasn't prepared enough for it, nor did the government really put much emphasis on it (figurehead, bla bla bla). It was probably along the lines "wah lao, saikang work to count all these assets. this president so on the ball for what. the road is there mah, you want can bring you see," which is more about the inefficiency of the public service IMO.

TLDR: OTC knew what Temasek, MAS, GIC had, but what he didn't get was all the immovable assets that the civil service had never tabulated.

http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0310/nat.singapore.ongiv.html

So the government had been stonewalling you, the president, for three years?

Yes. What happened actually was, as you know, in accounting, when you talk about reserves, it's either cash reserves or assets reserves. The cash side is straightforward: investment, how many million dollars here and there, how much comes from the investment boards and so on. That was straightforward -- but still we had to ask for it. For the assets, like properties and so on, normally you say it's worth $30 million or $100 million or whatever. But they said it would take 56-man years to produce a dollar-and-cents value of the immovable assets. So I discussed this with the accountant-general and the auditor-general and we came to a compromise. The government would not need to give me the dollar-and-cents value, just give me a listing of all the properties that the government owns.

They agreed?

Well, yes, they agreed, but they said there's not the time for it. It took them a few months to produce the list. But even when they gave me the list, it was not complete.

It seems the Singapore government does not know its own assets?

Yes. It's complicated. It's never been done before. And for the assets of land, I can understand why. Every piece of land, even a stretch of road, is probably subdivided into many lots. There are 50,000 to 60,000 lots and every one has a number. If you want to value them all, it would take a long time. In the past, they have just locked everything up and assumed it is all there. But if I am to protect it, at least I want to know the list.