President Nathan Breaks Silence On the Use of Reserves

I extract what President Nathan commented on the use of Singapore's reserve recently for Budget 2009. He took only a mere 11 days to approve it.

“We don’t micro-manage the Government. It’s for the Government in power to determine what needs to be done. I’m not an Executive President ... it’s for them to find solutions to our nation’s problems and come up with proposals,”

“it would have been presumptuous on my part to go forward and start to give explanations when explanations were not called for”

I wonder what is the role of a President then. I thought the President should be protecting the sacred reserves and any use of it should be studied seriously and deeply. Final decision should be leave to the President since he is paid million dollars annually! Even the U.S. President is paid just about half of the amount.

‘Why I said okay in 11 days’ [via]