Keeping the town clean

I prefer that the role of keeping the town clean revert back to the HDB, as it was in the old days. It does not make sense to waste the time of lawmakers, i.e. the MPs, to do the nitty gritty work of collecting the monthly charges and engaging the contractors.

In most other places, the town councils have much wider responsibilities in looking after the local services, such as buses, schools, libraries and the like. These councils are likely to be elected directly by the residents and are not the same people as the lawmakers.

The situation is quite convoluted in Singapore, due to the unnecessary petty politicking. If the lawmakers have to waste time in looking after trivial matters, they cannot spend the time to do their proper work, which is to represent the views of their voters in Parliament and to give meaningful debate to the laws that are to be passed. Our laws are quite outdated, and many key issues are not resolved.

It is time for our government leaders to realize that there are important issues that need to be addressed, and that the lawmakers should not waste their time on activities that can be better handled by other people.