FOR Bedok resident Gabriel Sim, the town council is just another government agency that he has to pay fees to every month.

He appreciates the clean estate he lives in but beyond that, the 30- year-old IT project manager does not see what else town councils do for him.

He does not, for instance, realise that town councils are supposed to function as a form of local government and give residents more say in the estate they live in.

'You mean the town council also includes residents? I thought they were all civil servants,' he says.

This link between residents like Mr Sim and town councils is something Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong admits is still missing, despite town councils having been around for 20 years.

For the record, town councillors are often grassroots leaders who reside in the estate. Being in the town council has enabled them to see for themselves how complex it is to run a housing estate, as Mr Goh notes.

But residents themselves? Says Mr Goh: 'That's the next stage - how do we get them to take a greater interest?'

By residents, for residents

THE idea of town councils surfaced some 25 years ago at an election rally in 1984. Mr Lim Boon Heng, then a second-term People's Action Party (PAP) candidate, suggested forming local authorities that could manage municipal affairs on their own separate from the HDB.

HDB estates could then develop their own identities instead of looking alike under one central authority.

The idea was supported by many MPs and Cabinet ministers, including Mr Goh, who was then Defence Minister and Second Minister for Health.

Speaking to Insight at his Istana office this week, Mr Goh recalls that MPs had to cope with much red tape whenever they wanted to get things done for their estates.

They first had to talk to the HDB branch office, which would then refer them to headquarters. 'HQ will say, this idea is good, but we can't do it for you because if we do it for you, we must do it for the whole of Singapore,' recounts Mr Goh.

Town councils started in 1988 with responsibility for housing estates in four group representation constituencies and 15 single-seat wards. In 1989, the Housing Board officially handed over the authority to manage estates to town councils.

By mid-1991 - a few months after Mr Goh took over from Mr Lee Kuan Yew as prime minister - all wards were covered.

Today, a total of 16 town councils - 14 PAP-run and two opposition-run - manage some 900,000 HDB flats islandwide.

They not only maintain HDB estates but also have the authority to introduce and enforce certain by-laws within their own estates.

They can, for instance, fine a resident if he parks his motorcycle at the void deck. They can also fine a shopkeeper for displaying goods beyond certain boundaries.

Beyond running estates however, town councils were also meant to achieve another objective.

This was to transfer some powers from the Government to MPs, grassroots leaders and ultimately to residents, by entrusting them with more responsibility for their own living environment. In Mr Goh's words, it was to 'devolve responsibility to more people, to give them a stake in the process of governance'.

But clearly that objective still has some way to go, as most residents still do not think of themselves as being responsible for their estates.

'We have not yet imbued the sense of personal and collective responsibility in the residents,' Mr Lim tells Insight via e-mail.

National Institute of Education professor Ooi Giok Ling, who wrote a paper on town councils in 1990, agrees.

The urban geography expert says that citizens' participation 'has not developed in any substantive way' where town councils are concerned.

Maturing political system

AGAINST that backdrop, the Government's latest move to introduce a report card system to grade the performance of town councils can be seen as part of the same attempt to get residents more involved.

The Town Council Management Report, which will be produced by the Government some time next year, will rate all 16 town councils in areas like cleanliness of the estate, maintenance of facilities and financial management.

The full list of criteria is currently being drawn up.

The need to evaluate town councils became a public issue late last year when it was revealed in Parliament that several PAP town councils had invested $16 million in toxic financial products.

But Mr Goh refutes the suggestion that the report is being produced because of the financial fallout. The timing is coincidental, he says.

In fact, he reveals, he asked the Housing Board to do internal assessments of HDB estates some years back, as these estates still belong to the HDB even though town councils run them.

There have been ad hoc assessments of the estates over the years, he notes.

He hopes the upcoming report will spur residents to take a greater interest in town councils' work and in how their estates are run.

Mr Lim wishes that such a report had been around from the start of the town council project.

'Then residents will better understand the relation between maintenance standards and service and conservancy charges. When they are not involved in running the estate, they expect high standards, but are not willing to fork out more,' he says.

'I think people living in private condominiums appreciate this better.'

Potential pitfalls

COULD the upcoming report backfire on the Government?

Mr Goh identifies potential pitfalls. One is whether residents see the findings as objective.

'While the evaluators could be as objective as possible, the people who read the report may not always agree that the report is objective,' he says.

People may also view the report as being biased against opposition wards, he notes. But he points out that PAP town councils may also be at the bottom.

He warns that any bias in the report will be damaging to the Government: 'Even the perception that it's politically biased will be very bad for us.'

His hope is that, taken in the right spirit, the report card will spur town councils to put in more effort to manage their estates. This applies to both PAP and opposition wards.

Says Mr Goh: 'The opposition may in future decide that they want to match PAP town councils in cleanliness. When that happens, then some PAP town councils will say, 'My god, we're now at the bottom, we're going to make sure we're not at the bottom'.'

Will the report simply invite more criticism of town councils?

Mr Goh agrees. 'We must be prepared to be criticised by the residents, but we've got to sift through the criticisms.'

He notes that some criticisms will be constructive and others cynical, and that those which contain a kernel of truth should be taken into account.

But there will also be those that should just be ignored. 'You can explain, you know, but they are out to just slam you. Ignore that,' he says.

For Mr Goh, the 'worst case scenario' that could befall the report is that it fades into the background.

He expects residents to sit up and pay attention when the report is first published. But if after two to three years and there is 'no scandal, nothing else is new', they may begin to lose interest.

'When you have an exercise which people don't pay much attention to, you would be wasting resources,' he says.

But overall, he sees more positives than negatives in the exercise to come up with a report.

'There are potential pitfalls but let's not be so concerned that it prevents us from moving forward.'

More powers?

IN AN interview with The Straits Times last December, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan suggested that, if residents are ready for it, town councils could be given more powers to decide what is allowed within their estates.

For instance, they could ban smoking, or legislate only healthy food in hawker centres, if that is what the majority of residents want.

Mr Goh agrees more powers could be devolved to town councils but for now, he believes that what they have is sufficient.

Some powers should be kept at the national level, he notes, such as those dealing with traffic violations.

When a person gets a traffic fine, he cannot go up to the policeman and threaten him, but he may go to the town council chairman, who is an MP, and threaten to vote against him, notes Mr Goh.

He adds: 'The national agency can be more objective, can implement policies without having to worry about the impact on the political scene.'

Another area of debate is the kind of financial autonomy a town council should have over the funds it collects.

After the disclosure of the $16 million lost in soured investments, there were calls by the public for more transparency on how councils invest funds.

As a result, all PAP town councils now make their latest financial reports available online. Previously only a few did.

They also put up statements explaining their investment policies, and how much they had invested in the toxic funds, if at all.

The Government's stand is that town councils should have the flexibility to invest their funds, subject to guidelines. One current guideline is that not more than 35 per cent of total funds should be in riskier investments like stocks and shares.

Mr Goh notes: 'We should allow them to do so (invest) with a long-term view, but cap it so that they won't put more than a certain percentage into shares. In case the market collapses, they can hold. They are not forced to sell.'

Residents were concerned with the millions lost, acknowledges Mr Goh, but he stresses that relative to the size of the funds town councils hold, the losses were small.

The $16 million of toxic investments made by the 14 PAP town councils represented 0.8 per cent of the $2 billion they had, mostly in accumulated sinking funds.

Alternatively, town councils could leave investment decisions entirely to residents, he says. But then what will happen?

'Let's say that I allow the residents to advise me on how to invest...Tell me how to invest. Then we go by majority vote.

'The residents will say, 'What did I elect you for? You are my elected representatives, you decide. If you do a good job, I am not bothered. If you do a bad job, I will criticise you'.'

Given such a situation, the town council report will be a good test case of just how much responsibility residents are willing to take in engaging their town councils on the work they do.

Will the residents simply take the opportunity to criticise their work, or will they use the chance to involve themselves more collaboratively with the councils?

In turn, the onus will be on councils to show that they are not just estate managers, but genuinely want to engage residents in the decision-making process.

If successful, town councils may yet return to fulfil the original ideal of a municipal government.

If not, it may continue to be seen as just another government agency collecting fees for services.