Good governance, but wheres the voice? - LOH CHEE KONG
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FIRST, the good news: Singapore
continues to rank among the best in five out of six areas in the
World Banks latest worldwide governance indicator report.
In particular, it received almost perfect scores in corruption
control and government effectiveness. But [color=red]the bad news
is that in the category of voice and accountability, which
measures political, civil and human rights, the Republics score
hit its lowest since 1996 and it was placed in the bottom half of
the 212 countries and territories surveyed. While Singapore led
South-east Asia in all the governance indicators, it ranked behind
Asian countries such as Hong Kong and India when it came to voice
and accountability. According to the World Bank, the latest
report which covers the decade from 1996 revised the banks
earlier scores after five new data sources, such as the
Gallup World Poll and the Open Budget Index, were added. These
revisions in virtually all cases result in minor changes in our
earlier estimates, the report stated. However, the revisions saw
Singapore move up dramatically in voice and accountability for
2005. [/color]
(To read more, please go
http://www.todayonline.com/pdf_open.asp?id=1207HNL004)
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Does a country like Singapore need political, civil and human
rights? Is it really that important for Singapore to have these?
ARe we deprived of these?
Perhaps, this is something worthwhile to take into consideration
before we cast our votes.
