CITY COUNCIL (SUSPENSION AND TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS) BILL

Order read for resumption of debate on Question [15th July, 1959], "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Question again proposed.

2.50 p.m.

The Minister for Health (Inche Ahmad Bin Ibrahim): (In Malay): Mr Speaker, at the end of the Assembly sitting yesterday, I explained the motion that was before us. Regarding the criticism of the Opposition, I feel that it was not criticism which was constructive but quite the reverse. As we see it. Mr Speaker, the object of Government in transferring the functions of the City Council to the Minister for National Development is mainly to ease the administration and to enable better services to be provided for the public.

But yesterday, we heard the Opposition wasting our time on the talk of whether it was democratic or not of Government to take over the functions of the City Council. I feel that our criticism of this matter should be logical and realistic. The Opposition should understand the whole purpose of the Government exercise, which is to put it simply, to make it easier for the proper implementation and also for the benefit of the public.

We, on this side, have explained what difficulties a member of the public has to face if he wants to, say, build a house. The complications involved are known to many. The Government, by taking over the functions of the City Council, hopes to remove these difficulties and hopes to have matters affecting the public dealt with most speedily.

We have assured the employees of the City Council and the Rural Board that they will not be dismissed from service as a result of this take-over. There is no justification whatsoever for any sense of insecurity of employment. All we want is a more efficient administration for the benefit of all. This matter had been dealt with at length and I feel that it is now time for the Minister for National Development to make his final reply.

Mr Ong Eng Guan rose -

Mr Speaker: In reply?

Mr Ong Eng Guan: In reply. Mr Speaker, whether it is fate or whether it is just a mere coincidence, the fact is that wherever the Member for Farrer Park has been or has gone to, it has been my strange and unpleasant task to follow him wherever he is.

The Member for Farrer Park was in the City Council for nearly ten years and we see the mess he left for us to clean up. Mr Speaker, the Member for Farrer Park was also in the Singapore Improvement Trust and we are now doing the cleaning up. We have chosen the S.I.T. building as the headquarters for the Ministry of National Development, because we believe that at present it is the most filthy and the most corrupt institution in Singapore, and we are going there to clean it up as expeditiously as possible. Mr Speaker, the process of cleaning up has started. The S.I.T. building in the past has been famous or has been notorious for two reasons. One is that there have been many suicides, romantic affairs and financial problems. There have been many suicides from that building, but to the people of Singapore, the famous S.I.T. building in Upper Pickering Street is noted not for its suicides but for the filth and the corruption which the small nine-storey building can contain. The process of cleaning up the small building has started. Immediately I was appointed the Manager of the S.I.T., I called for the file of one of the most important persons in the S.I.T. - Mr Firshman. He was-

Mr Speaker: Order. I was just wondering how the Minister's remarks could be related to the present Bill, which is the City Council (Suspension and Transfer of Functions) Bill. The Minister, of course, will have other opportunities of criticising the S.I.T. At the moment, we are on the Second Reading of the City Council (Suspension and Transfer of Functions) Bill.

Mr Ong Eng Guan: Mr Speaker, I was replying to a pertinent remark made by the Member for Farrer Park that he hoped it would not be the last of us as regards the S.I.T. building.

Now, we are confident that, as with the City Council and the City Hall, the S.I.T. building will be the second step in the right direction of achieving a social revolution. As I mentioned, we are proceeding along those steps. As I have said, one person scooted the day his file was asked for. He knew that the P.A.P. means business and we are confident, Mr Speaker, that the S.I.T. building will not be the last of the P.A.P., or the last of our Ministry, as the Member for Farrer Park has envisaged, but it will only be one step which will bring us further to our goal of a social revolution,

Mr Speaker, the policy of rationalisation and streamlining of the machinery of government in Singapore has been laid down in our policy speech which was approved by the electorate on 30th May, 1959. May I repeat here certain extracts from the P.A.P.'s policy statement:

"One of the important decisions we will take for the welfare of the people of Singapore, should the P.A.P. be returned as the government, is the immediate re-organisation of the present unwieldy, inefficient, expensive and wasteful system of government. The advantages of the re-organisation of the administration of the State of Singapore by having only one Central authority for this Island State are briefly as follows:-

(1) Politically, the absorption in the Central Government of parallel administrations in the forms of the City Council and the Rural District Councils designate covering the whole island makes for an efficient and effective Central Government.

(2) Administratively, the centralisation of State functions in an island like Singapore will reduce much red-tape for the benefit of the public, and also facilitate the work of national construction.

(3) Financially, it will mean the saving of millions of dollars a year."

Politically, administratively and financially, the people of Singapore have much to gain by rationalisation of the organs of Government.

Mr Speaker, today in this Assembly we are facing similar situations faced by other countries in other parts of Asia, countries which have achieved independence. In this country, Mr Speaker, we always find that the compradore class which the colonial rulers left behind are often more colonial-minded than their colonial masters. They try to ape their colonial masters in all their forms without understanding their contents and their meanings. They are capable of copying every iota of the forms practised in British parliamentary democratic institutions without understanding what is the essence.

I sometimes wonder, Mr Speaker, whether hon. Members of the Opposition, some of whom were Members of the previous Government, understand what is meant by democracy. Even an Englishman, a person in the category of Mr John Ede (ex-Member for Tanglin) and one of the former close colleagues of the present Member for Farrer Park, mentioned in this Assembly on 12th December, 1958, Vol. 3, columns 1227-8 of the Hansard:

"We come to the conclusion, as we must, that the cost of administration on this small island of 220 square miles is out of all proportion to the returns we get and to what we can reasonably afford. We cannot afford the luxuries of the democratic system but only the essentials; by which I mean that we cannot afford the cost of a multiplicity of administration - a central or national government, local government as represented by the City Council for one part of the island, and four new District Councils for the rest of it."

Mr Speaker, may I say that he omitted one paragraph in the previous Government - a colonial government under the Governor and the Central Government under Tun Lim Yew Hock, the present Member for Cairnhill. Mr John Ede, ex-Member for Tanglin, continues:

"We often refer to Singapore as a City State. Why do we not run it like a City State under a single, streamlined, rationalised administration? Most of us have been brought up to accept the British pattern of central government and local government - I have certainly been very close to it myself - but it is becoming clear that we must recast our thinking and reshape our ideas, and have the courage to admit that it is not necessarily satisfactory on a small island."

He quoted examples -

"The boundary between the City and District Councils for many miles runs down the middle of roads, Braddell Road for example."

Mr Ede was trying to explain to Members of the House how much red-tape meant.

"The City Council may want to resurface and widen their half of the road, even to make a dual carriage-way, but the District Council, which will be responsible for the other half of the road," -

the other half of the road-

"may have other ideas. So nothing will happen and the road will deteriorate, and it will cost more to put it in order in the long run."...

Roads are in the hands of the Government, the City Council, the District Councils and now even the Rural Development Panel. There are two assessment offices and two policies. Traffic is in the hands of the City Council in certain aspects, the traffic police and licensing under the Chief Secretary, and transport to some extent under the Minister for Communications and Works.

Although there is to be a Government housing authority, local governments are in charge of building plans and construction by-laws." Mr Speaker, Mr Ede was quoting examples of how the task of national construction could be frustrated by this red-tape.

Yesterday, certain hon. Members of this House mentioned that to scrap the City Council or to absorb the City Council into the central Government would mean less chance of a merger with the Federation, because the Federation has local government. To a mind like mine, I cannot understand what logic it has - that merger is related to the existence of local government authorities. But since certain hon. Members are interested in mentioning the Federation, let us show them what Mr Ede mentioned in his debate on the relationship between rationalisation of the Government machinery in Singapore and merger with the Federation.

"If we show to the Federation and to our neighbours and to the world that we are bent on putting our administrative house in order, reducing our overheads and lowering our expenditure, we should attract both the Federation and the world to our doorstep. Indeed, eventual merger with the Federation will be easier if we have one clear-cut administrative body from which certain subjects can go under central control with the minimum of reorganisation. We shall appeal more to the Federation if we are a financial asset, and not a liability."

Mr Speaker, this is to show that often we find in countries which have attained independence that the compradore class which the colonial masters left behind have only learned the forms of democratic parliamentary institutions without understanding their contents and their meanings. We in Singapore cannot afford the luxuries of this lavish copying of the outward forms of the democratic system. To our people at large and to the large masses, democracy means how fast we can deliver the goods, and how much goods we can deliver. It does not mean, as the Member for Farrer Park said, how many political groups should administer the state of affairs at the same time. That was the situation during his ten years of office in the City Council. We had the colonial group represented by the President. We had the Progressive Party group, we had the Labour Front; we had a group of Independents. That is the system of administration which has produced scandals, like the leaks in the Murnane Reservoir which at present cannot be used; the Odeon-Katong cinema; and the millions of dollars spent on the Tebrau River scheme where six sets of machinery were bought but one only was used during the past five years, the other live sets being thrown into the dust to rust. And scandals over the Victoria Memorial Theatre, and many other scandals which we have no opportunity to reveal, because on the positive side we are spending our time in doing work for the people.

Now, Mr Speaker, that is the system of Government which the Member for Farrer Park and his colleagues would like to see continue in this island - a system of Government where there are very many different competing political groups whose basic fundamentals are the same but whose personal interests are conflicting - where many shady things happen and where we cannot pin down responsibility on any person or whoever he may be, a Councillor, a member of the staff, or of a political party. The previous Government did not want to fight vested interests because they were afraid of vested interests, or because they were linked up with vested interests, I will just quote an example of how, under the old regime, a person could get things done or could not get things done. For a village in the rural area to get a standpipe, the headman must first write to the Rural Development Commission, which is under the direct jurisdiction of the Chief Minister, the present Member for Cairnhill. The Chief Minister will write to the Member of the Local Government, perhaps, who in turn writes to the Rural Board, and which might in turn write to the District Council, which in turn write to the City Council, perhaps, through the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government. Hundreds of memos would have been sent around asking for a standpipe to be erected in the village. The people in the kampong cannot wait for the Ministers and their Permanent Secretaries and the Heads of Departments wasting time on the memoranda for their needy water supply. Now, Mr Speaker, is that the way whereby the Member for Farrer Park wishes democracy practised in Singapore - checks and counter-checks? You check and counter-check to make sure that the money is properly spent, and let the poor farmers wait for many years before they get their water supply. Mr Speaker, if it is with honest intentions that the money should be properly spent - well and good! But from my experience in these few weeks in the Ministry of National Development, I have seen, from records. Ministers and Heads of Departments spending thousands of dollars in salaries dealing with matters of difference which were not more than $5 or $10.

The Member for Farrer Park has also asked me a question - Is the Minister for National Development going to issue hawkers' licences himself? Mr Speaker, the Minister for National Development has no personal ambition to distribute or to issue hawkers' licences himself, nor taxi drivers' licences, nor trishaw riders' licences, nor any form of licences. We believe in organisation, we believe in building up an honest, efficient civil service whereby the Minister himself does not have to issue licences. The Member for Farrer Park perhaps wishes to see us carry on with the method of issuing licences which he himself had practised in the City Council. Before we went into the City Council in December 1957, it was the general knowledge of hawkers that, in order to get licences, the applicant must get the requisite number of bottles of "TST" brandy, the requisite number of katties of oranges and tins of biscuits, and send them to the person concerned in order to get a licence.

Now, Mr Speaker, we do not believe in Councillors and Ministers themselves issuing licences. We believe in evolving and training a competent, honest and efficient civil service to issue the licences, and the Ministers will just do the check and counter-check. We have found that licences issued when the Member for Farrer Park was in office in the City Council led to many abuses. Mr Speaker, democracy to the P.A.P. does not only mean the form of parliamentary democratic institutions practised in Britain and other countries. What is more important to us is the content of the democratic institutions, and by that we mean that we must be able to deliver the goods and we must be able to effect economies, rationatise the administration and deliver as much goods as we possibly can.

Mr Speaker, our policy to rationalise the City Council and absorb it into the Government administration is one of the steps - a positive step - we are taking to uphold democracy, for the benefit, not as in the past, of a small vested group, but for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of the people.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole Assembly.

Assembly immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Mr Ong Eng Guan].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read the Third time and passed.