So we were treated to a spectacle in Parliament recently with the Workers’ Party having to defend its management of the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East town council in the wake of the Auditor-General’s findings. The WP is being cajoled into pursuing its own investigation into the supposed shenanigans of its managing agent. The G has warned darkly about criminal charges.
A repeat performance can be expected when the MND’s budget comes up for debate with more details on a review of the Town Council Act. Perhaps, all will be unveiled to tighten the practices of town councils to subject them to more regulatory oversight. Among the expected rules : town councils won’t be able to decline submitting reports to MND, such as on its service and conservancy charges arrears. But whether WP committed a big or small foul, criminal or civil, some people want to know if the infrastructure in place for a changeover of town council operations is robust enough.
What a poster said: Can we confirm that citizen’s monies are not wasted in having to come up with a completely different accounting system that has to be set up from scratch when GRCs change hands, and the old system abandoned? Can we assure that no such wastage occurs in future, including man hours spent in parliament debating such wu-liao things that should not have happened in the first place if system was not changed?
There’s some sympathy for the WP which singled out the difficulty in getting a new software/computer system set up to reconcile S&C accounts after it pulled Aljunied and Punggol East under its fold. The withdrawal of the PAP’s AIM company left a gap. Software glitches, manual counting led to mistakes in its arrears reports, so WP said.
Netizens have a point about the transfer process. What sort of time frame is adequate for handover processes that involve thousands of dollars? What if the current managing agent pulls out or terminates its contracts? Was the Town Council Act conceived without safeguards for a handover in the expectation that town councils will not change hands? What is the role of the G (as opposed to a PAP-controlled G) in ensuring that voters’ choice is respected and their interests – despite their political inclinations – safeguarded?
Another poster said: Should all Town Councils be de-politicised and centrally administered so that there will be minimal or no handover/ mis-management issues? The welfare of residents must always come before politics.
Some have called for a return to the HDB days when it managed estates. But it seems too late to roll back time. Imagine the politicians having the ground cut out from under their feet literally. Town council management was supposed to display their ability to run the small stuff. If you can’t manage an estate, can you manage the country? Such management was supposed to keep them close to the ground, instead of merely seeing their duty as talking shop in Parliament. But is there a level playing field or are there obstacles, wittingly or unwittingly, put in the way when a new group takes over?
It is my fervent wish that should there be a review of the Act, it would be submitted to a parliamentary select committee to gather more views.
The roles and responsibilities of MPs in town councils brings forth another point on their relationship with the grassroots groups.
The same poster asked: On a related matter – there are many posters, placards etc in my estate from the Town Council / Residents Committee featuring the picture of our elected representatives – who pays for these materials? And if it is the “town council” is it an appropriate use of S&C funds. If it is the PA, is it an appropriate use of non-partisan funding?
It is an old issue raised even in pre-Town Council days. The alphabet soup of grassroots groups run by the People’s Action Party in constituencies are G institutions. The G is the PAP. Hence, the PAP is in charge of grassroots groups. That’s how the logic goes for the opposition politicians and their fans.
Personally, I don’t think the groups painstakingly built up by the G should be handed over simply. The deal was the town council changes, not the constituency groups. My problem is whether the authority of the grassroots groups are on a par or even over-rides that of the elected MPs. It is something the WP tried to raise in court in the saga over whether its trade fair was held legally. It had, among other things, chafed about having to gain the support of the Citizens’ Consultative Committee, the key grassroot group in the constituency.
So here is my own question: Please explain the role, responsibilities and powers of the appointed members of the Citizens’ Consultative Committees and how they compare to those of the elected members of the constituency they serve in.
