| 61. |
Many MPs have asked the Government
to do its part to cut fees and charges, and
not rely solely on wage and CPF cuts to reduce
the cost of business. This is a legitimate
request. The public sector is always looking
for ways to cut costs. The Ministry of Finance
has launched a civil service wide Economy
Drive to review all our discretionary expenditure.
Everything from development projects to expenditure
on manpower to day-to-day expenses is placed
under scrutiny. The idea is not so much to
cut overall government expenditure, but to
effect savings which can be redirected to
new initiatives and higher priority areas. |
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| 62. |
One measure which we should
be finalising in the next two months is the
review of civil service salaries for new recruits
and in-service officers to bring them more
in line with the private sector. |
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| 63. |
Miss Indranee Rajah and Mrs
Fang Ai Lian have called for a pro-business
civil service, one that operates with more
'common sense'. I assure members that common
sense is not so uncommon in the civil service.
There is a reason why many civil servants
enforce rules so strictly. It is because at
the operational level, flexibility to exercise
discretion can tempt officers to offer favours.
So strict and transparent rules are by design
a trademark of our honest and clean Government.
Members want civil servants to exercise discretion
in their constituents' favour, but they also
want the rules to be transparent. It is hard
to have both. |
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| 64. |
I am not suggesting that it
is good for our civil servants to be rigid
bureaucrats. We have to make a bigger effort
to operate more flexibly and cut red tape.
We need to increase convenience and reduce
costs to businesses and to the general public.
We have some successes, for example, 57 (33%)
of all the 173 statutory declaration requirements
by the government will be removed by the end
of this Financial Year. There is a Pro-Enterprise
Panel (PEP), whose task is to follow up on
suggestions and complaints from businesses
to change or remove rules. Out of a total
of 1011 suggestions received thus far, nearly
half (46%) have been accepted. So we are quietly
making progress, even though perhaps not quickly
enough. |
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| 65. |
It is not possible to change
the mindset of the civil service overnight.
But by driving this effort right from the
top, we send a signal across the service,
and over time, the approach will percolate
down the ranks and we will slowly but steadily
clear the red tape away. |
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| 66. |
Many MPs have called for greater
economy and less waste in the civil service.
Given the success of the Pro-Enterprise Panel,
I have decided to set up another group - the
Cut Waste Panel. It will include members from
the private and people sectors. The Panel
will be chaired by the Head of Civil Service,
who also chairs the PEP. Anyone who has any
suggestion of where the government can cut
waste or remove frills is welcome to put the
idea to the Cut Waste Panel. By cutting waste,
the civil service will reduce its cost of
operations. The lower the cost of operations,
the lower the fees can be. |
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| 67. |
The Cut Waste Panel cannot cut
everything to the bone. Recently, one newspaper
columnist suggested that we reduce the size
of the civil service by 30%, and so avoid
reducing the CPF rate. This was a particularly
absurd proposal. But the Panel can demand
that unnecessary costs be cut, unnecessary
rules removed, unnecessary programmes stopped,
and unnecessary fees and charges reviewed.
I encourage MPs and members of the public
to contribute actively to both the PEP and
the Cut Waste Panel. The more proposals come
to the Panels, the more effective they can
be. |
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