(Delivered in Parliament on 8 January 2018)
The Public Sector Governance Bill aims to harmonise the rules governing the operation of all public bodies in Singapore in respect of dimensions such as the relationship between a Minister and a public body, values, data protection rules and so on and so forth.
On the whole, the bill marks a step in the right direction and I do not oppose the bill.
Before I continue, I declare that I serve as the CEO of a research and consulting firm that has, on occasion, undertaken public sector projects in the past.
My speech will focus on Clause 11, which seeks to limit the Minister’s powers to issue directions to public sector agencies so as to reduce the risk of the politicisation of the public service. Clause 11(3) states that Ministers are not authorised to direct any public sector agency or any public body or public officer to perform or not to perform a particular act with respect to a particular person or persons. This is clearly a step in the right direction and I welcome it.
Having said that, I share the concerns and support the questions raised in relation to this clause by my colleague and Party Chairman Ms Sylvia Lim. I shall not repeat them here, but will focus on one additional consideration.
In Singapore, we have a history of public servants moving on to take up roles in politics immediately upon leaving the public service, primarily by joining the PAP and serving as MPs or Ministers in the PAP government, with little or no break in between.
There would always, presumably, be some public servants who possess the necessary ambition, aspiration and willingness to seek to exit the public service and join politics, and perhaps to become a Minister or even Prime Minister one day. So as to increase their chances of successfully joining the ruling party and becoming MPs or Ministers, such public servants may try to second guess what their Minister would like them to do, even in the absence of any explicit instruction from a Minister to do the said act, and may then just go out and do it. The intended goal of such a strategy may be for that individual public servant to be looked upon favourably not just by his or her Minister but by the leadership of the ruling party in respect of consideration for being fielded as a ruling party candidate in the next election.
I am not arguing that this necessarily happens now but it is something that may happen in the future. My focus is on the principle and managing future risk.
To be sure, there would be nothing illegal about any public servant attempting to pursue such a strategy and this law does not change that.
But is it healthy for Singapore for such a culture to become widespread? After all, becoming a Minister is an attractive career option for a high-performing public servant, as it means taking on the role of the boss under which he or she ultimately serves. So the incentive for such a culture to grow is there. And if such a culture takes root in the future, it would mean that the public service would become partisan and eventually and inevitably be seen by the public as partisan, which would be a terrible outcome, not least in terms of attracting and retaining good public servants who have no wish to be partisan or to eventually enter politics.
To be sure, the risk of subordinates second guessing their boss and doing what their boss wants in the absence of a formal, explicit instruction is not new. In fact it is a risk that has been noted for centuries in the context of all kinds of organizations.
I will cite one famous example from history.
There is a sentence attributed to a former King of England from the 12th century, Henry II. He was supposed to have said, in a council of his senior advisors and noblemen, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” referring to Thomas Beckett, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he had had repeated conflicts. This was not a direct order. But it is said that upon hearing this comment, four senior knights attending the meeting then went on to kill Becket, in one of the most famous political assassinations of medieval times.
I cannot, of course, attest to the historical veracity of every part of this story but it is a story that has been told through the centuries to illustrate the perils of subordinates in any organization second guessing their boss and taking actions that they think may please their boss…and even perhaps going to greater extremes than their boss would have thought necessary. So this problem is not a new one and not specific to any organization.
So how do we prevent a culture of ambitious public servants second guessing their bosses and taking partisan but legally permissible actions, which may over time erode the reputation of the public service for non-partisanship?
I would like to make one suggestion here which is to impose a mandatory time gap between when an individual leaves the public service and when that individual enters politics. In the debate on the Banking Act I had asked Minister Ong Ye Kung if such a mandatory time gap – referred to in that context as gardening leave or a cooling-off period – existed for MAS officers who wished to resign from the MAS and join a financial institution and he confirmed that such a time gap existed. The analogy here with what I am proposing is not perfect but it is useful to note that there is a precedent for such a mandatory time gap proposal.
Imposing a mandatory time gap between when one can leave the public service and when one can join politics – say 3 years – would give pause to any ambitious public servant who might seek to read their political master’s mind and do their partisan bidding, unasked, so as to facilitate their chances of joining the ruling party as an elected politician. He or she would know that they would need to find employment outside the public service – in the private sector or not-for-profit sector – for a certain number of years before joining politics. Hence there would be a period of time when they would need to find alternative employment and the fruit of their partisan action or actions could not be reaped immediately. And with the passage of time, the memory of their acts in the public service and their links to their former political masters may become more attenuated, thus further reducing the motive to commit such acts.
Imposing a mandatory time gap may send a signal to aspiring public servants that if they choose to second guess their bosses and speed the path to a Ministerial post, the link between their actions and the hoped-for results will be weaker than it is now. It may cool the ardour of such public servants to second guess their boss and act for him or her.
Such a rule would also have other benefits than the one I have mentioned.
It would ensure that future MPs and Ministers from the civil service would need to have private sector and/or not-for-profit sector experience prior to becoming MPs and Ministers. The relative lack of such experience in the Cabinet has often been bemoaned by experts and commentators. In Singapore’s first Cabinet upon the attainment of self-government, the proportion of civil servants has been far, far less than in the Cabinets that followed.
And the period of time during the mandatory time gap would also allow them an alternative form of employment and give them the time and space to reflect if they really do want to enter politics so that those who eventually do take that step may prove to be more committed to that pathway.
I hope that some form of mandatory time gap can be considered for ex-public servants seeking to join politics.
Thank you.