The government has released its latest Town Council Management Report and graded Workers’ Party’s Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council with the only “red” grade in the entire report.
Worker’s party received “red” in the area of collecting Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) as it had more than 5% of households which were in arrears for more than 3 months.
The report was released today (21 Nov) and was an assessment of the 15 town councils in Singapore for their performance for 1 year ending in March 2013.
The areas assessed in the report were cleanliness, maintenance, lift performance, S&CC arrears and corporate governance. Generally all towncouncils did well in most areas except for maintenance.
Workers’ Party’s wards as well as 9 other PAP wards received a yellow grade in maintenance.
Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council was the only one to score red in S&CC charges, Potong Pasir Town Council received a yellow grade for S&CC arrears. All the rest of the categories for all town councils was green.
It is curious that the government’s report was so harsh on Worker’s Party’s ward.
Could this be another attempt to ‘fix’ opposition by broadcasting to Singaporeans that the Town councils run by WP were the worst in the MND report?
Everyone is well aware of the PAP’s attempts to politicise anything that works in their favour, such as the recent raising of cleaner’s wages only within PAP wards. (Only cleaners under PAP town councils to get pay rise).
Is this report by another government and PAP run body really reliable?
Using visual cues such as green, yellow and red grades, it may give the impression that WP town councls are doing very badly.
In actual fact, the figures themselves are not nearly so frightening. The report indicated that only 5% of households were in arrears for over 3 months. While clearly the PAP town councils have much lower numbers, using “red” to label this situation makes it look much worse than it is for people simply glancing through the news.
Presenting the data in this was likely a deliberate choice.