FROM GOVERNING TO GOVERNANCE

On 16 April 2004, the Straits Times reported that the government had accepted 60 of the 74 proposals the Remaking Singapore Committee had made just 9 months earlier in August 2003. Of the remaining 14, 2 were under consideration and 12 had been rejected. Balakrishnan, Minister of State for National Development and Committee's Chairman, said on the occasion:

If you look critically at the changes which had been put in place, there should be no doubt in your minds that there is more space than ever before for you to form your own associations, to engage in constructive dialogue with government, and to make things happen (Straits Times, 16 April 2004, 17 April 2004; Appendix X: Remaking Singapore Committee Recommendations and Government Responses, 15 April 2004).

The first accepted change relevant to this study is making registration procedures for associations easier by not requiring all societies to obtain prior approval, but registering through a system of “Automatic Registration”. Societies that constitute no threat to national security will be so registered while those that fall outside this category will be specified in a schedule. The spirit behind this change is that “it promotes self-regulation by civil societies [by] allowing societies, which fall outside the negative list, to be registered based on self-declaration” (Remaking Singapore Committee Recommendations and Government Responses 2004, n. 36, p. 16). This seems to manifest an increase of trust from government towards non-government actors.

The second accepted proposal is the drawing up of a “Code of Consultation” through the issuing of a public document that would provide guidelines and minimum standards on when and how the public should be consulted. It is disappointing that rather than intending to empower civil society, the stated reason behind this initiative is “to provide greater flexibility for government agencies to identify issues amenable to public consultation” (Remaking Singapore Committee Recommendations, Government Responses 2004 n. 39, pp. 17–18). This is further elicited from the reference this response makes to the announcement made on the issue by the then Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (now Prime Minister) in his speech to the Harvard Club on 6 January 2004.