S'pore's new agenda to focus on people
S'pore's new agenda to focus on people
SINGAPORE (AP): The government is at a "major changeover
point" and wants to focus its new 21st-century agenda on people,
Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Sunday.
The city-state's parliament will go into recess this week and
re-open in October, giving lawmakers and the government a chance
to take stock and plan a new program, Lee said.
"It's a major changeover point for us," he said in remarks
carried by the Television Corporation of Singapore news.
The coming new millennium is "a good time to set a new
beginning and to identify the major priorities which we have in
mind - and I think it will focus one way or another on people,"
Lee said.
Critics have complained that Singapore's long-ruling People's
Action Party government is authoritarian and detached from the
country's people.
Voters have repeatedly returned the PAP to power, however, and
the party is widely credited for wealthy Singapore's economic
success. But tight political controls and defamation suits
against opposition politicians have drawn fire.
"A tightly supervised press and civil society, plus a highly
litigious attitude towards the opposition and other dissidents,
have made it hard for Singaporeans to think of themselves as
members of a democratic society," columnist Cherian George wrote
in a Straits Times newspaper article on Sunday.
Lee said a look at future policy is timely as the current
government, elected in January 1997 for a maximum five-year term,
has reached its midway point.
All of the country's ministries have been asked to set out
what they want to do in the "next phase" of the government, Lee
said.
Singapore's new President S.R. Nathan will deliver a major
policy speech when Parliament re-opens in October, the TV report
said.
Other Singapore leaders have also recently hinted at a softer,
people-oriented approach.
In a national day rally speech last month, Prime Minister Goh
Chok Tong told hard-working Singaporeans to remember to have fun.
"If Singapore is a dull, boring place, not only will talent
not want to come here, but even Singaporeans will begin to feel
restless," he said.
Goh noted that Time magazine and London's Financial Times --
which formerly derided the country as staid, strict and dull --
have recently published articles swooning over the place as
"funky" and "cool."
The conservative Asian country's schools have been moving away
from rote learning, and the government has put more emphasis on
developing arts and entertainment.