Serious MAYOR : "What Is The Role Of A Mayor? " - LIM TEAN

[shiokalingam]

LIM TEAN


What Is The Role Of A Mayor ?

The feverish discussion currently raging in Singapore about how useful the 5 PAP appointed Mayors are provide a useful starting point for examining what the proper role of a Mayor should be and whether this should be a part time job commanding an obscene annual salary of $660,000.
We must remember that this discussion has been simmering for years and did not arise simply because of what Pritam Singh brought up in Parliament earlier this week.

In most democratic countries, a Mayor is the head of the municipal or local government. This position makes sense in a medium size to big country, especially one where there is a Federal system, where there is separation between the National and State or Provincial governments. So Mayors are common in the European and American democracies.

A common denominator in true democracies is that Mayors are elected and are not part of the National Parliament or Congress.They are elected in Mayoral or Municipal elections. Examples of well known Mayors include Boris Johnson ( current British PM ), who was the Mayor of London for 2 terms and Jacques Chirac ( former President Of France ) who was a long serving Mayor of Paris. Both were elected to their positions of Mayor and both were never Members of Parliament when they were Mayors. Both ran big cities and had their hands full doing a full time job.

In Singapore, the position of Mayor appears to me to be an add on (or tambah) position!

The 1st qualification appears to be that you must be a PAP MP. Never mind if you are not a full time Mayor. You can double hat or triple hat and be a Mininster Of State plus an MP on TOP of being Mayor. But you are still entitled to an obscene salary of $660,000 a year besides your other salaries or “allowances” for wearing other hats.

That this Mayor’s position cannot be considered serious is demonstrated by the fact that 4 out of the 5 incumbents are part-time Mayors. And indeed one has to query why the position of Mayor is needed when we have so many Ministries, agencies and other bodies which can carry out the same work which the Mayors do. I wasn’t the least bit impressed by the work done by the Mayors which Denise Phua spelt out in Parliament earlier this week.

And it was facile for Denise to rebut Pritam by suggesting that he should not politicise the issue since he was granted and accepted the office of Leader of the Opppsition. Is she seriously suggesting that the superfluous office of Mayor is the equivalent of the Office of Leader of the Opposition, which has the vital constitutional role of bringing the government of the day to account?

When I read Denise’s rebuttal to Pritam, it appeared to me that the sum total of her argument was that he should “shut up” and be grateful for the patronage of the Prime Minister in giving him his current Office.

If I was in Pritam’s shoes, I would have lambasted Denise for insulting the intelligence of the Singapore electorate.

Mayors have no place in a small country like Singapore. If they insist on having Mayors, then do the decent thing and ask all these Mayors to resign from Parliament and be candidates in Mayoral elections! Also, why do we need 5 Mayors when cities such as London, Paris and Shanghai, which have much bigger populations and land areas, have only one?

The quality of debate in Parliament which came from the PAP side this week ( including Alex Yam, Ong Ye Kung, Gan Siow Huang, Heng Swee Keat, Carrie Tan and of course Denise Phua ) was so dismal, you have to fear for the future of our country.

 

[shiokalingam]

 

[sweetiepie]

KNN as my uncle always say what's the point to keep saying leemotely KNN lim tean know you know I know my uncle know everybody also know KNN want to stop it only way is face to face by force KNN else how my uncle beat ceo and mgt to puppy KNN

 

[sweetiepie]

Lim tean think say and say will have change or what KNN

 

[laksaboy]

A snot-sized island urban shithole doesn't need a mayor.

You're just fabricating additional bullshit positions which you can then use to legally steal money from the people.

Analogy: if you have a small dick, don't use a XL size condom.

 

[eatshitndie]

“mayor” in the sg context means “money and years of retirement”.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

The politics of PA, Town Councils, CDC, Mayors and Grassroots advisors - The Online Citizen Asia
by Joseph Nathan

Love them or hate them, the People’s Action Party (PAP) coming into power has a lot to do with their mastery of mass propaganda.

Like shrewd sales men, they can sell you just about anything.

Post independent Singapore was already a thriving port that was supporting a vibrant trade hub under the British rule, and yet the PAP can change the narrative to Singapore being a backwater slum, with no hope of becoming a nation without them.

If not for the thriving trade, why would many of our parents and grandparents migrate to Singapore? If not for the British, Singapore would not have any functional Court or Legal System to enforce Law & Order, no Shipbuilding & Rig-building expertise, no Military, no under-ocean or land telecommunications network, no Sea & Air ports, infrastructure etc.

PAP has not only inherited these expertise and legacies from the British, but has benefited from it.

If Singapore was to be under any other European rule, like the Philippines or economies in Indo-China region, then we would have to start from scratch as those colonial masters literally destroyed most critical infrastructure before departing.

Even our CPF Scheme was created in 1955 by David Marshall, via the Progressive Party committee as a compulsory savings scheme to assist workers to provide for their retirement needs.

This Pension Scheme was not created by the PAP but yet the PAP can narrate to give the impression that the CPF Scheme was their brainchild, and that Singaporeans should just trust them with their retirement pension.

In fact, the PAP is just a few months older than our CPF Scheme, and the irony is that many Singaporeans are still clueless about this fact!

At the grassroots level, we already have Kampong Heads and District Leaders to keep our community functioning and stay informed about social, economic and political developments.

Unlike our current million-dollars mayors, these public-spirited individuals do not have to join the PAP just to be of service to their communities while controversially collecting obscene amount in remuneration.

Before any election, political parties like the PAP would have to “sell” their political agenda to these Kampong Heads and District Leaders, and assured them that the people and society would benefit from voting for them.

This “check & balance” by our real grassroots leaders has kept the First Cabinet of the PAP on their toes.

In all fairness, our First Cabinet did deliver on many of their promises and Singapore prospers as a nation due to the collective efforts of our active citizenry.

Independent check and balance was a key to Singapore’s early success as a nation.

For the PAP to secure full power and control, these grassroots leaders, like the journalists of yesteryear, were like sores that needs to be surgically removed.

Fast forward, they were now replaced with high-paying politicians and political appointees from the PAP and our mainstream media are now at their beckoning, a sore point that has been constantly vocalized by concerned Singaporeans.

With full power and control comes less need for responsibility, more so when the PAP starts believing that only they can or know what is best for Singapore and Singaporeans. They have master the mastery of being our master.

This delusion is not only very dangerous but toxic even to those in the PAP that aspire to do good. As once gerrymandering comes into play, these politicians will join in the gerrymandering for fear of losing their benefits. Can anyone name any patriotic PAP politician that has put country before party politics?

This explains why complacency has creeped into the current 4G PAP, and without the proper “check & balance”, some of them have even the audacity to be arrogant and dismissive when questioned.

People’s Association (PA) was created by the PAP in 1960 to further our Nation Building, to ensure that Singaporeans actively contribute to our nation’s growth, and this was underpinned by a Social Compact.

When the PAP decided that their politicians and office-holders be paid top dollars, they inadvertently apply the welfare state mentality that unsustainably support a politicalized social system where politicians enjoy a state-sponsored Swiss standard of living while majority of our Working Class continues to slog and struggle just to put food on the table.

This clearly wasn’t the basis of our original Social Compact, was it?

If PA is no longer the agency for the original Social Compact, what exactly is the role and function of the PA these days?

For a small city-state like Singapore to support a legion of politicians who would otherwise become economically non-viable in the real world, it is inevitable that the PAP has to create and justify the creation of endless new public offices that do not make any sense, like having 5 mayors despite having PA, ministries, agencies and VWOs actively involved in social development.

Then there are the Town Councils, Political Advisors etc.

If the PAP is genuinely sincerely about the welfare and well-being of Singapore and Singaporeans, then they should return to the wisdom of financial prudency.

I have to agreed with Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat when he spoke in parliament on Friday that “we should strive to remain fiscally prudent to build back our reserves gradually”.

So what can we do to be “fiscally prudent” to ensure that we can “emerge stronger” as a nation?

By directing the Ministry of National Development (MND) to take back all municipal roles and functions of all Town Councils, Singapore can save from the economic of scale in municipal management and make much greater stride in our Green Initiative and fight against Climate Change. No?

This will encourage more activists, politicians and volunteers to step forward and effect critical changes needed to ensure our urban sustainability.

This will also means that all the offices for mayors can also be obsolete should the Ministry of Social and Family (MSF) be directed likewise.

Likewise, we can also correct the absurdity of putting new politicians, who are clueless about the endless challenges of our society and still “wet behind their ears”, as Grassroots Advisors when we already have plentiful of experience and public-spirited grassroots leaders and volunteers that are keeping our society functioning.

What exactly can these young and inexperienced Grassroots Advisors advise experienced grassroots leaders, activists and volunteers?

The huge savings will definitely go a long way in helping and supporting Singaporeans in needs too.

There are a lot of reasons to bring back the true Kampong Spirit of yesteryear but there is One Serious Impediment – how to keep those useless politicians economically viable?

We clearly cannot afford paying these political bums millions in remuneration and pension when the majority of what they profess to be doing are in fact opportunities for public-spirited Singaporeans to volunteer or exercise their patriotism in the first place.

Is the PAP justified in blaming Singaporeans for not being socially active when they are the ones who are monetizing these avenues and reserving these “enhanced opportunities” for their own in the first place?

If Singaporeans are truly concerned and patriotic, then we must help the PAP government solve this Great Impediment and restore Singapore back on the road of sustainability by removing the exclusive state mentality of the 4G PAP politicians.

Time to think hard if we still believe Singaporeans deserve better…

This was first published on Mr Nathan’s Facebook page and reproduced with permission

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[millim6868]

halo, PAPigs all need to build their own personal reserves,so they can buy more propertoes shop house, if can ask them all declare their assest , think 61% will be shocked ,like city harvest

 

[batman1]

Singapore DO NOT need a mayor. The Municipal Services Office (MSO) under MND works with key government agencies,Town Councils and our community partners
to improve feedback management and customer service for municipal services.One such collaborative effort is the ONESERVCE APP,whch allows you to report on municipal issue easily without the need to know which agency is responsible for the issue.Presently, MSO also helps to coordinate all the relevant parties in areas where
multiple agencies are involved in an efficient and coordinated manner,which in turn helps to improve the living environment for Singaporeans.

 

[Kee Chew]