Fewer CDCs mean more focus

With its own mayor, each CDC will serve 400,000

by IVAY TAN

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PRIME MINISTER Goh Chok Tong said yesterday that the number of Community Development Councils will be cut from nine to five and each will have a full-time mayor.

With the reshuffle, each CDC will now serve about 400,000 people, as compared to between 200,000 and 800,000 before.

Mr Ong Keng Yong, chief executive director of People's Association, said the previous CDCs were "too unfocused and diffused".

The current Tanjong Pagar CDC, for instance, not only covered the Tanjong Pagar area, but also West Coast and Buona Vista, which confuses people who live there, he said.

Another example was Chua Chu Kang, part of Bukit Timah CDC, he said, which is surrounded by Sembawang and Hong Kah.

"The current system is quite haphazard because the geographical spread doesn't make sense to the ordinary people," said Mr Ong. "Now, the geographical area is so well-defined and the name is so specific that people can identify with it."

Speaking to reporters after his three-hour victory parade around Marine Parade GRC, PM Goh said the more experienced mayors would be on a par with ministers of state and, in future, even the senior minister of state, while the younger ones would be equivalent to senior parliament secretaries.

"In that way, we may be able to check people out in CDCs as mayors and also as ministers of state and then we can interchange," he said.

"You will not have a single-member CDC because from my experience, it will not be very effective to have one chairman and one single CDC."

PM Goh mooted the CDC idea in 1996 to reinforce community bonding, develop social services like childcare centres and to provide financial help to residents.

The five new CDCs are North East, South East, South West, Central and North West CDCs.

The South West CDC will be headed by Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, while South East CDC will be led by Mr Othman Haron Eusofe.

The other mayors will be named after the Prime Minister announces his new Cabinet.

PM Goh, who had said that Cabinet announcements would be made on Saturday, said Mr Lim Swee Say, who is currently Acting Minister for the Environment and Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, would become a full-fledged minister.

While many ministers would be old faces, PM Goh said that some of the experienced ones would have to make way for new ministers.

The Prime Minister also confirmed that the former Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and the former permanent secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr Khaw Boon Wan, would be promoted to ministers of state.

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