Even before the economy has fully recovered, Aljunied and Jurong Town Councils have already increased their Service and Conservancy Charges.  Taking effect next month, the increase will range between $1.50 and $7.50.  The Town Councils justified the increase citing more expensive lift servicing cost, electricity tariffs and cleaning contractors.  No doubt, the general prices of goods and services have been going up and it was in 2004 that Town Councils last increased their S&CC charges, but the underlying question is how professional and forward-looking are our Town Councils.  Mind you, they’re in essence estate managers of communities that number several hundred thousand.  And let’s not forget, the Town Councils also collect season parking coupons receipts and these would surely have surged given the increase in the number of cars in recent years.

The current S&CC charges are neither very expensive nor very cheap, while they’re considered affordable by most Singaporeans, it is the “no-value-for-money” or the Geylang “no-bang-for-the-buck” feeling that residents get from paying S&CC charges.  The blocks are only clean for the few short hours in the morning, the lifts always emit a particular smell and the walls perpetually stained by glue of real estate agents pamphlets.  And to demonstrate how dense these people are, after so many years of painting walls stained by pamphlet glue, why can’t they set up a meeting with the police and the real estate agents associations and give a stern warning to these people vandalizing public property.

In Jan 2010, residents in Pending Road were up in arms over their newly installed laundry bamboo pole holders as there were too small for their existing poles. The new holders which cost $200k had an economic multiplier effect as many residents had to buy new poles which were smaller.  The simple thing that Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council could do was to keep to the old diameters of the pole holders and yes, these same fellas lost millions in the Lehman Minibonds.  When asked, they replied that the holders complied with HDB requirements.  Meaning to say that the old ones did not comply and were a hazard to pedestrians walking below them?  What happened to apologizing and moving on?

Another area where Town Councils are lacking is recycling, I can’t even find a recycling bin in my neighbourhood for the plastic bottles, cans and waste paper that I have collected.  Surely, as the largest estate manager of 80% of Singapore’s population and as the ruling political party, it is the social responsibility of Town Councils to educate, promote and facilitate recycling.  They have not done this, at least not where I stay.

In Sep 2009, the government came up with the Town Council Management Report Framework where Town Councils’ performance will be judged based on the cleanliness of estate, estate maintenance, lift performance and S&CC arrears management.  It could potentially be a huge wayang show because inspectors are from HDB which like the Town Councils, are under the Ministry of National Development.  Besides, MND also did not include financial performance as one of the indicators in the framework as they claimed that different estates have different needs due to their age and they had difficulty coming up with fair indicators.  Simple, the benchmark of their financial performance should be pegged to the GDP as the bonuses of our ministers and top civil servants are tied to the GDP as well!  Surely, they can perform as much as they earn! Moreover, if they do not meet the financial performance indicator, they should be frank about it and explain why as Town Council sinking funds belong to the residents as well.

The last question that Singaporeans should ask themselves is with so many pressing questions to be answered and improvements to be made in Singapore, would MPs with a full-time career outside of their parliamentary and constituent duties be able to dedicate enough efforts to improve our Town Councils?

For readers info:

Town Councils are required, under the Town Councils Act, to set aside between 30% and 35% of the s&cc in the Sinking Fund. The Sinking Fund is utilised for major cyclical repainting & repairs, renewal or replacement of roofing system, water tanks, pumps and water supply system, rewiring, lifts, major repairs and maintenance of the common area and contributions to the HDB in respect of general upgrading works carried out on the common property under the Housing and Development Act . Cyclical repairs and maintenance works are major works which require large sums of money. By accumulating sinking fund over time, residents do not have to pay an additional lump sum each time one of these major works needs to be carried out. Town councils can invest up to 35 per cent of their sinking funds in financial instruments like equities, corporate bonds and funds.