Good governance,
but whereÂ’s the voice?
LOH CHEE KONG
[email protected]FIRST, the good news: Singapore continues
to rank among the best in five out of
six areas in the World BankÂ’s latest worldwide
governance indicator report.
In particular, it received almost perfect
scores in corruption control and government
effectiveness.
But the bad news is that in the category
of “voice and accountability”, which measures
political, civil and human rights, the RepublicÂ’s
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 bank’s 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.
_____________
But the bad news is that in the category of “voice and accountability”, which measures political, civil and human rights, the Republic’s score hit its lowest since 1996 and it was placed in the bottom half of the 212 countries and territories surveyed.REally, the ruling govt needs to do something on political, civil and human rights. So far are they not doing so due to reasons that by doing so it may not cater to their wants.
Seriously, this is something worthwhile to take into consideration before we cast our votes.
