TOWN COUNCILS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Senior Minister of State for National Development (Dr Lee Boon Yang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Town Councils Act came into operation on 5th August 1988. Since then, 27 Town Councils have been formed. 18 Town Councils have taken over the management of the common property within their towns. The other nine Town Councils are in various stages of taking over the management of their common properties. Although the Town Councils Act is a relatively new piece of legislation, my Ministry has in the course of establishing Town Councils actively reviewed the provisions of the Act. Several Town Councils have also proposed amendments to the Act to deal with problems which they have encountered. My Ministry has carefully considered these proposals and concluded that changes are necessary if Town Councils are to carry out their statutory functions effectively.

One issue which every Town Council has to grapple with is the accumulation of arrears in service and conservancy charges. Arrears deprive Town Councils of funds to carry out estate maintenance work. People who chalk up arrears are in effect passing the cost to fair-minded residents who pay their bills promptly. A second difficulty encountered by Town Councils is that of deterring abuse of the common properties, for instance, abuse by owners of motorcycles, and dealing with such offenders. To deal with these two issues, clauses 8 and 10 have been introduced in the Amendment Bill.

Clause 8 empowers Town Councils to make by-laws to impose administrative fees and penalties for late payment of service and conservancy charges and other charges payable to Town Councils. Town Councils will also be empowered to collect deposits for service and conservancy charges from owners and tenants. These provisions will deter owners and tenants from late payments. The administrative fees and penalties will make it less attractive for people to delay payments to Town Councils and ensure that Town Councils do not incur higher costs unnecessarily.

Clause 8 also allows Town Councils to make regulations to prohibit the illegal parking of vehicles on common property. This is a common violation which has caused much nuisance to residents. With this amendment, Sir, Town Councils' by-laws will now be applicable to residents and non-residents alike. It has to be so because visitors to a town ought to comply with the particular Town's regulations.

Clause 10 introduces new sections to the Act which will enable Town Councils to recover arrears expeditiously. Under section 43(1) of the Town Councils Act, a legal charge is constituted if the owner or tenant still owes service and conservancy charges after the expiry of 90 days from the issue of a notice of demand from the Town Council. However, there are cases where a flat may be sold, surrendered to HDB, or re-possessed by HDB before the charge becomes legally constituted. In such cases, the Board requires the consent of the owner or tenant to deduct the service and conservancy arrears from compensation monies and rental deposits held by the Board. Clause 10 will enable Town Councils to request HDB to deduct service and conservancy arrears, including interest and penalty, from any compensation and deposits held by the Board.

Clause 10 also allows Town Councils to retain fines imposed under the Town Councils Act or the by-laws made by a Town Council. The retention of such payments will help to defray a Town Council's costs incurred in taking enforcement and prosecution actions against offenders.

To enable Town Councils to identify offenders, clause 10 empowers members and employees of a Town Council to request a person, who is suspected of having committed an offence, to furnish his particulars. Failure to furnish particulars will be an offence and upon conviction, a fine not exceeding $1,000 could be imposed. This provision also allows Town Councils to delegate the power to request for particulars to certain employees of the managing agents for the Town Council.

To facilitate enforcement against parking offences, the owner of a vehicle shall be deemed to be guilty of the parking offence as if he was the actual offender unless he proves otherwise. This provision is necessary for the Town Councils to carry out effective enforcement action against motorists who park their vehicles indiscriminately in the void decks or on any part of the common property. This provision is similar to that in the Parking Places Act.

Another new provision in clause 10 empowers Town Councils to compound offences committed under the Act or their by-laws. At present, Town Councils have to prosecute offenders through civil suit as there is no provision for compounding the offences committed. Such civil suits are costly and time-consuming. Enabling Town Councils to compound offences will reduce the need for prosecution in Court.

Finally, there are some minor amendments to the Town Councils Act. Clause 2 of the Bill makes it clear that it is not the responsibility of the Town Councils to maintain gas installations. Gas installations will continue to be maintained by the Public Utilities Board.

Clause 4 of the Bill will enable a Town Council to appoint two Vice-Chairmen. In the absence of the Chairman or if the office of the Chairman is vacant, any one of the two Vice-Chairmen can perform the duties of the Chairman.

Town Councils are authorised to collect charges for the use of any facility or service that they provide. This is spelt out in section 19(c) of the Act. What is not clearly stated is that this includes making charges for the use of any part of the common property, eg, part of the open space between blocks. Clause 7 in this Amendment Bill will make it clear that Town Councils can levy charges for use of any part of the common property, as was originally intended.

Under clause 11, employees of managing agents are deemed to be public servants for the purposes of the Penal Code. Since employees of managing agents are carrying out the instructions of Town Councils, they should be given the same protection provided to public servants under the Penal Code.

Clauses 3, 5, 6 and 9 are consequential amendments.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed. 2.30 pm

Mr Ng Pock Too (Nee Soon Central): Mr Speaker, Sir, my GPC supports the Town Councils (Amendment) Bill.

The Town Councils (Amendment) Bill will give the Town Councils the requisite powers to carry out their functions more effectively, particularly in the collection of service and conservancy charges.

The Bill seeks to empower Town Councils by enabling them to introduce by-laws to levy administrative fees and penalties for persistent late payment of conservancy and service charges. Recovering money owing to Town Councils by residents who persistently incur arrears has always been a tedious and bothersome task. Town Councils have had to resort to various means to tackle the problem of arrears, such as posting up notices bearing the names of offenders, issuing letters threatening legal action or applying to the Small Claims Tribunal. This Bill will empower the Town Councils to impose penalties on those who incur arrears persistently and to demand the payment of upfront deposits to ensure that conservancy and service charges are paid promptly.

While my GPC recognises that this Bill will help Town Councils to discharge their functions more effectively, we are concerned whether the existing arrangement for delegation of powers by HDB under the Housing and Development Act will remain. At present, Town Councils carry out enforcement action with powers which HDB delegates. Will this delegation of power continue after the amendment? Do Town Councils have the choice of continuing with the present arrangement?

Another concern my GPC has is in connection with the compounding of offences so that Town Councils need not prosecute each and every offender. But what will happen if an offender chooses to blatantly ignore the compound notices issued by the Town Council?

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Mr Speaker, Sir, I have, first of all, to declare my interest. I am the Chairman of the Potong Pasir Town Council.

Sir, I rise to support the Bill. I welcome the amendments because we at Potong Pasir run the Town Council ourselves. Unlike other Town Councils, we do not engage professional managing agents to do the job for us.

Sir, we welcome these amendments because it gives more teeth to the Town Councils Act. But fortunately for us at Potong Pasir, even without the amendments, we need not resort to putting up notices of names of persons who owe the Town Council money. But, nevertheless, we welcome the amendments to the Town Councils Act which enable Town Councils to impose penalties and administrative fees.

Without these amendments, when we send notices, and we put in a lot of manpower to get back the arrears, the Town Council in fact loses money. So with these penalties, we do hope to recoup some of the monies expended.

The Town Councils are now able to compound fines. Again this is an improvement because, under the present law, when any offender is caught, he has to be brought to Court for a remedy. And also now the Town Councils are able to keep the fines which are paid to the Town Councils' fund. Apparently, before the amendment, the Town Councils have to hand over these fines to the State. And also another welcome provision is that any offender who parks his vehicle at the Town Council's common property is deemed a vehicle owner under the by-laws made by the Town Council. Also with these amendments, tenants are required to deposit with the Town Council a security for payment of service charges and also the interests are now imposed, instead of 30 days, on a monthly basis. This is a welcome change. Also as has been mentioned by the Minister, now when a tenant divests his HDB property, the HDB will recoup the money owing to the Town Council and pay it to the Town Council.

Sir, may I also bring up a related matter which concerns the Town Councils? This is the applications for funds for certain community improvement works made by the Ministry of National Development (MND) and they are disbursed by the Community Improvement Projects Committee (CIPC). At the moment, Town Councils may apply for certain categories of community improvement works to be wholly or partially subsidized by MND, and when these projects are approved, funds will be disbursed by the CIPC. But the mode of application is something which we are unhappy about. Applicants, normally the RCs and other grassroots bodies and the Town Councils, are now allowed to apply for these funds for community works. The applicant in the first instance must go through the Citizens' Consultative Committee (CCC) and get the approval or support of the Advisor and Honorary Secretary of the CCC. The next stage is to go to the Secretary of the Community Development Secretariat or CDS. These two bodies are in fact under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Community Development. Although the Town Council is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Development, it is only after going through these stages that the application will be processed by the Secretariat of the CIPC, and then later on to the MND. These other stages come under the jurisdiction of the MND.

We would urge the Minister to do away with the first stage, that is, to apply through the CCC and the CDS, because the Town Council in fact comes under the MND. I do not see why we should go to another Ministry to ask for funds. We should go directly to the MND. That I think is more logical.

Sir, in the case of Potong Pasir, the MP there is not the Advisor to the CCC. In fact, the MP there had defeated, at an open and fair General Election, the person who is now made the Advisor to the CCC. Fancy that - I am the MP there, having won the election, and I have to go to the person whom I had defeated for approval. It does not seem right at all to me.

Sir, I think the Town Councils should be allowed to approach the CIPC directly which is under the Ministry of National Development. I hope that the Minister will look into this anomaly and rectify the application for funds which are disbursed by the CIPC.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 3.00 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 2.40 pm until 3.00 pm. Sitting resumed at 3.00 pm

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Debate resumed.

Dr Ong Chit Chung (Bukit Batok): Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Bill. First, I wish to declare my interest as Chairman of the Bukit Batok Town Council.

This amendment is most timely and will give the Town Councils more clout to deal with a number of issues. It closes a gap in the existing legislation, enabling the Town Councils to apply the by-laws to visitors and non-residents in estates under their management. Otherwise, the Town Councils will be powerless and helpless against non-residents, who could abuse the facilities in the town and yet get away scot-free.

The Town Councils will, through the amendment, be empowered to act against those who park their vehicles indiscriminately, with no due concern for environmental pollution or for the safety of our children. Many simply park their motorcycles in the void decks and rev up their engines early in the morning, adding to noise and air pollution. Some motorcycles have indeed caught fire in the void decks and they pose a danger to residents in these blocks.

The amendment grants the Town Councils and the alleged offenders the flexibility of compounding the offences, rather than be entangled in tedious and costly court actions. The provisions of administrative fees, penalties and the requirement for deposits would give more teeth to the Town Councils in tackling the problem of bad debts which is a major area of concern for most Town Councils. Some residents are genuinely in need of help and are unable to pay. In such instances, Town Councils generally refer these cases to the Ministry of Community Development and to the welfare organisations of the respective constituencies. However, there are those who can pay and yet do not pay promptly. These people are adding to the cost of running the Town Councils. Indeed those who pay promptly are indirectly subsidizing those who do not.

The amendment allows the Town Councils to levy charges for the use of any part of the common property. I welcome this provision because Town Councils can now exercise their ingenuity to generate income from the use of this common property and thereby add to the improvement works in the town.

The amendment also allows the Town Councils to retain all fines imposed under the Act or any by-laws made by the Town Councils. The question is: Are these fines collected taxable? The Amendment Bill empowers the Town Councils to prescribe offences which may be compounded. However, unlike the Housing and Development Board Act, there is no explicit provision to enable the Town Councils to prosecute offenders who infringe these by-laws or who do not wish to pay up the fines. In such circumstances, can we seek the Attorney-General's permission to prosecute or must we file private summonses? Whatever it is, the Town Councils will have to incur the legal expenses, and yet the income generated by these fines may be subject to income taxes. I hope the Minister, therefore, can help to clarify the situation on these issues.

I support the Bill, Sir.

Mr Chng Hee Kok (Tiong Bahru GRC): Mr Speaker, Sir, I must declare my interest as a member of the Tiong Bahru Town Council.

Sir, the majority of Singaporeans are decent people. Civic consciousness and good neighbourliness are virtues not foreign to us. It is this consideration for each other that has made life pleasant in many of our neighbourhoods when times are good and bearable when times are bad.

With urbanisation and highrise living, the same kampong style warmth and outgoing spirit among neighbours has, perhaps, waned over the years. But it still exists. One thing remains unchanged, Sir, and possibly never will be, is that in every community or neighbourhood, you will find at least one misfit - either a family or an individual - who goes out of his way to make life unpleasant for his neighbours, by being inconsiderate, parasitical or downright nasty. While we should try to counsel such people on the folly of their ways, there should be recourse to bring them to heel if kid's gloves tactics do not work. The provisions contained in the Town Councils (Amendment) Bill give the Town Councils one such recourse.

I, therefore, support the Bill. This Bill is another important step forward in the work of the Town Councils by providing it the means to deal with uncooperative and recalcitrant residents. These residents who are the minority are responsible for indiscriminate parking and littering of the environment. Such undesirable behaviour not only causes inconvenience and discomfort to other residents, but also increases the cost of maintenance of the estate. I also welcome the measures to address the problem of late payment of service and conservancy charges. Again, Sir, this small group of residents, although able to pay, chooses not to. This means they are being subsidised by the majority. Penalties against such people are definitely in order.

In short, Sir, this Bill aims to protect the rights of the majority from a small minority of difficult residents and deserves the support of all Members. I will, however, voice a word of caution. In giving the Town Councils the muscle to deal with such errant residents, proper care must be made to ensure that the Town Councils give ample notice to them before they wield the big stick. Blatant errant behaviour should be dealt with decisively. But in cases of back payment of conservancy charges and other dues, the Town Councils should not act too hastily if they are genuine cases.

As in all things, Sir, soft words, then stronger ones, should be used before we use the big stick.

I support the Bill, Sir.

Mr Eugene Yap Giau Cheng (Mountbatten): Mr Speaker, Sir, I lend the Bill 99% support. The other 1% will depend on how the Minister replies.

I would like to take this opportunity, Mr Speaker, to urge the Government to consider the other side of the problem. It is very well to use the stick and we have used it often enough to good effect. But should we not now turn to the carrot more than to the stick? Let us make the 1990s a decade for Singaporeans to show greater love for their country and to reflect this in a more sensitive concern and care for the place they live in. We have arrived at a stage in our history where we have achieved for ourselves a standard of economic well-being close to that of a developed nation, and I think we should set for ourselves a more refined and gracious social lifestyle that is commensurate with our stage of development.

Judging from reports of how some Singaporeans are behaving with respect to their environment, I think we have lots more to do. We should press on persuading and educating Singaporeans to show concern and love for the place they call their home. By this, I mean it would be very natural for them not to litter. It becomes natural for them not to park their cars illegally. It would be natural on their part to pay up their dues on time, meaning doing what comes right naturally. This idea will tie in quite nicely with the First Deputy Prime Minister's point on striving for 100% in productivity when he launched the 10th Anniversary of the Productivity Movement not too long ago.

The illustrations he used were very vivid and I would like to borrow one of them. If you do not have 100% Singaporeans behaving themselves, but only 99% right, naturally then 1% of recalcitrants constitutes 1% of 2.6 million littering, misbehaving themselves, acting unsociably. And imagine the policing you have to do, to keep a look-out for them. They do not of course commit the offence at the same time which makes life more miserable. If you cannot catch them, you still have to support the policing staff, plus another group to clean up the litter. This too goes for the issuing of parking offences and so on. You can imagine how much trouble we create for ourselves if we do not take a long-term view of this. We have to take into account the ominous labour shortage we have on our hands. For not only does the Minister for Labour not allow foreign workers to work freely in unskilled areas, we have Singaporean parents who naturally want their children to do well for themselves in more skilled areas. We have a stupendous shortage of labour in the future. We know it is not good to attract labour into this area with better pay, so we need our people to train to be part of a skilled manpower and not part of a pool of unskilled workers.

So I think we should consciously institutionalise a programme to bring up future generations of Singaporeans who are naturally lovers of the environment, lovers of doing things right, lovers of conforming to the law. This way we can achieve 100% even in this area of Singaporean life. We need to look again at our existing courtesy campaigns which cater to our general public and look to some Government departments, like the Ministry of Education, which can reach the younger section of our population to help achieve this. There needs to be a concerted effort to reach children as early as possible in the kindergartens and through to primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and tertiary institutions to seriously uphold and practise values which will naturally show in better social behaviour towards our physical environment.

Town Councils too have a role to play in helping to bring about this scenario, through publicity and support, wherever possible. But it is the Government that has the machinery to penetrate every area of our society to effectively achieve this end. So I ask the Minister: does he concur with my views and, if he does, will he go through and review the Town Councils Act again and again, work out a balance between the carrot and the stick, and put in the spirit to take us through the 1990s successfully?

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to thank all the Members who have spoken up in such strong support for the amendments to the Town Councils Act. I would like to now address some of the questions which have been asked by Members and also some reservations which have been expressed.

The Chairman for the GPC on National Development and Housing has asked whether delegation of powers or enforcement under the Housing and Development Act will continue. This is the present arrangement. Town Councils are at present carrying out enforcement work against abuse on the use of the common property or in some other areas, for instance, littering and spitting, which are delegated to them by both the HDB and the Ministry of the Environment. This arrangement was arrived at because the Town Councils Act did not provide for Town Councils to carry out enforcement actions against non-residents. Once the Bill is passed by this House, Town Councils would be able to carry out enforcement of all its by-laws against residents and non-residents alike. In which case there is less need for Town Councils to carry out enforcement through the medium of delegated authority, whether it is under the Housing and Development Act from HDB or the Environmental Public Health Act from the Ministry of the Environment. The intention here, Sir, is to provide Town Councils with the legislative basis upon which it could make by-laws to manage its common property and to see that the common properties are not abused in any way. It is the long term intention that Town Councils should avail itself of these powers under the amended Town Councils Act, make the necessary by-laws and carry out enforcement on its own, rather than depend on the delegated authority from HDB or the Ministry of the Environment.

Mr Ng, and I believe Dr Ong also, asked basically the same question: Will town councils be able to prosecute those who deliberately ignore the compound notice that has been sent to them for offences such as illegally parking their motor cycles on the void deck or any other offences against the Town Council's by-laws? The answer is yes. Section 24(7) of the Town Councils Act provides that a breach of the by-laws is an offence punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding $1,000. Therefore, if any offender refuses to heed the compound notice or refuses to pay the compound fine, Town Councils are fully entitled to prosecute the offender in court. One way for a Town Council to do this would be to engage a lawyer and carry out a civil proceeding against the offender using the powers provided under the Act. Another way is for the Town Council to seek a mandate from the Attorney-General by appointing a suitably qualified legal person to act on his behalf. If the person satisfies the Attorney-General's requirement to ensure that the prosecution standards are not in any way sacrificed, then the Attorney-General can give that person a mandate to carry out the prosecution on behalf of the Attorney-General's Chambers. So there are two ways that a Town Council can approach such prosecution.

Mr Chng Hee Kok has supported the Bill but he cautioned that proper care should be taken by Town Councils before exercising the new powers under the amended Act. I agree with him that in all cases Town Councils should serve the notice to the offenders or serve appropriate notices to those who are in arrears before taking action to either prosecute or to even compound such offences. There are provisions in the Act which spell out how such notices can be served.

Sir, Mr Eugene Yap has given the Bill 99% support and I think that is good enough for me. He spoke on the other side of the problem which is that Town Councils should also consider the use of the carrot and not just focus on the use of the stick, as with this Amendment Bill,they now have greater teeth and there are more powers to impose penalties and administrative charges. I must say that I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Eugene Yap and that while we have to spell out that penalties and deterrents are necessary, all Town Councils should bear in mind that this is not the only way to solve the problem.

It is also important for Town Councils to accord equal priority and perhaps even greater priorities to educational and persuasive efforts to convince their residents that it is in their own interest to assist the Town Council in the task of managing the housing estate. Singaporeans, by and large, are very conscious of the need to be tidy, to be clean. You have only to walk into the homes of the average Singaporeans to see how house-proud they are, how orderly their homes are, how clean they have kept their homes. And yet there is a significant number of Singaporeans whose attitude takes a sudden 180 degrees turn when they step out of their front door and whatever is outside the front door, ie, the common property, belongs to somebody else, and they will not hesitate to litter or to dispose of unwanted bulky furniture at the staircases or lift landings, thereby causing obstruction to their neighbours and friends. It is in this area that Town Councils should continue to educate and persuade such people to change their habit and to inculcate greater self-discipline among the residents so that the task of managing the estate can be made simpler, less costly and also more effective.

Nearly all Town Councils have already initiated newsletters to establish contacts and rapport with their residents to circulate news and information to them. I believe such newsletters are a useful medium for a Town Council to educate its residents on the proper norms of behaviour, on how to avoid littering or creating a mess within the environment of the estate. I think through the medium of the newsletters, Town Councils should urge the residents to play their part so that the total cost of maintaining the estate need not go up unreasonably.

While the Act provides for penalties and deterrents, there is nothing in the Act which can be construed as inhibiting or preventing a Town Council from carrying out such educational and persuasion programmes. In this regard, let me assure Mr Eugene Yap that all Town Councils that wish to embark on any such programmes to offer incentives and carrots to residents to improve their social behaviour and social discipline will receive the full support of my Ministry.

Finally, Sir, I come to the Member for Potong Pasir. He has also supported the Amendment Bill. The fact that he himself admitted that his Town Council has had to send notices to residents and also put in a lot of manpower to recover arrears indicates how serious the problem of arrears is to all Town Councils, including the Potong Pasir Town Council. He stated that under the present Act all the fines that are collected for any offences under the by-laws or any offences under the Housing and Development Act and the Environmental Public Health Act are handed over to the State. I would like to correct him on this. Even under the delegated authority arrangements, Town Councils are reimbursed for their cost in helping both HDB and the Ministry of the Environment to enforce the relevant Act. In the case of HDB, it pays to a Town Council 50% of all the fines that are collected for any offences referred to HDB for action. In the case of the Ministry of the Environment, it reimburses the Town Council $50 for every case compounded or prosecuted. This is because the Ministry of the Environment and HDB actually have to do much of the work, such as prosecution, serving the notice of compound and also receiving payments. So the fines received have to be shared out between both parties, HDB or the Environment Ministry, on the one hand, and the Town Council, on the other.

Sir, the Member for Potong Pasir is unhappy with the mode of application for grants under the Community Improvement Projects Committee, ie, the CIPC grants. I would like to point out to the Member that the mode of application for grants under the CIPC has not changed. CIPC was formerly known as the Urban and Rural Services Committee. It has always required any application for grants to be submitted through the CCC and there is a very good reason for this approach because the URSC, and now the CIPC, provides grants not only to Town Councils. The CIPC funds are available for any constituency to carry out improvement projects, even though it is in an area which may not be within the town. Because, as the Member is aware of, a Town Council's jurisdiction is limited to the common areas, the common properties, within the HDB housing estates. Many constituencies also have areas that are not within HDB housing estates, ie, the private housing areas and many of the shop houses which are non-HDB.

Therefore, each constituency is entitled to apply for grants under CIPC to carry out improvement works in this area. The Citizens' Consultative Committee of that constituency is in the best position to assess the needs and relevance of the project, whether it is in the town or in the non-town areas. Therefore, we have continued to adopt a long established procedure for application of grants for such works. There has been no change. It is not a recent change that the Town Councils are required to go through the CCC before they can make an application to CIPC for grants.

Sir, I believe I have addressed all the points raised by the Members. Once again I thank them for their support and hope that with this Amendment Bill, all Town Councils will be able to carry out their work expeditiously and more effectively.

Mr Chiam See Tong: I have just one small clarification from the Minister. The Minister says that if any Town Council wants to embark on any project which will improve rapport or to offer incentives or carrots to the residents, it will get the support of the MND. I want a clarification whether this kind of support is financial or otherwise.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Sir, it must depend on the nature of the programme and the kind of support that he is seeking. If it is an outright grant, then we will have to look at it and see whether there is a vehicle under which such grants can be made, or whether it would be better for him to apply through the existing channel which is, as I have mentioned earlier, the CIPC grants. These are available and the Town Councils could seek such support.

Question put, and agreed to.

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

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Dr Lee Boon Yang].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment.

Third Reading

Mr Speaker: Third Reading, what day?

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Now, Sir. I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Third time."

Question proposed.

Mr Heng Chiang Meng: I wish to speak on the Third Reading, Sir.

Mr Speaker: May I remind you that you can only speak on the contents of the Bill and not on the merits and demerits of the Bill. Do you still wish to speak?

Mr Heng Chiang Meng: Sir, I am not going to speak on the merits of the Bill.

Mr Speaker: Well, I will listen to you. But if you are out of order, I shall not hesitate to rule you out of order.

Mr Heng Chiang Meng: As you so decide, Sir.

Sir, we have heard, during the Second Reading, the speakers going through the merits of individual items of the amendments. But here I would like to use this opportunity to take a very much closer look at the real issue behind the problems of Town Councils. Although the amendments will help the Town Councils to better manage the towns, these amendments, I believe, are only treating the symptoms and not the disease.

Sir, the real issue is this. What are Town Councils for?

Mr Speaker: Order, Mr Heng. I can see that you are not debating on the contents of the Bill and you are out of order.

Mr Heng Chiang Meng: Sir, I am speaking on the subject of Town Councils and the problems of the amendments and how they can or cannot help the Town Councils.

Mr Speaker: I can see by the approach that you are taking that you are out of order. Please be seated.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Third time and passed.