Chief of Army BG Goh Si Hou follows in footsteps of predecessors; to be promoted to Major-General

Chief of Army Brigadier-General (BG) Goh Si Hou is following in the footsteps of his predecessors and is set to be promoted to Major-General on 1 Jan 2019.

The Ministry of Defence said in a statement that BG Goh was due for a promotion. Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen awarded a promotion certificate to BG Goh, who is a recipient of the President’s Scholarship and the SAF Overseas Scholarship, at a ceremony yesterday.

Most of the former Chiefs of Army who precede BG Goh were promoted to Major-General during their military careers. This includes Lim Neo Chian, Ng Yat Chung, Desmond Kuek, Neo Kian Hong, Chan Chun Sing, and Ravinder Singh, among others.

All of these men have had successful careers in the corporate or civil sector after they left the military.

After retiring from active military service, Lim Neo Chan held both executive and non-executive positions in various organisations, including the Jurong Town Corporation, Economic Development Board, ST Engineering, Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Cruise Centre.

Ng Yat Chung became an executive in Temasek Holdings after leaving the SAF in 2007. He then joined Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) and became its Group President and Chief Executive Officer. In 2017, Ng joined Singapore Press Holdings as their Chief Executive Officer.

Desmond Kuek went on to become CEO of rail operator SMRT. He was succeeded at SMRT by new CEO Neo Kian Hong who leads the organisation to date.

Chan Chun Sing now serves as Minister for Trade and Industry and second assistant secretary-general of the ruling party while Singapore’s first non-chinese Chief of Army Ravinder Singh went on to run ST Kinetics.

While some netizens congratulated BG Goh online, other netizens reacted more sarcastically to his promotion: