Singapore — In his latest Facebook post, Workers’ Party politician Yee Jenn Jong addressed the lack of symmetry of information in the political scene in Singapore.
Having written a book titled “Journey in Blue” that enables readers to understand the work carried out by opposition politicians in Singapore, Mr Yee includes some excerpts from his book in his post.
The first excerpt he shares reveals that the People’s Action Party (PAP) has access to around 120,000 public servants that work full time. They can also access data and policymakers with ease while those from opposition parties have to work hard to obtain data from ministries when such data was could not be retrieved from the public domain.
Being in parliament allowed him to bring up issues that he felt was important to address. He managed to ask many questions that allowed him to obtain more data or steer discussions towards what he thought was important.
Mr Yee establishes parliament as the most important platform in the country for policy-making and law. Even as opposition members, Mr Yee and his other party members were able to use Parliament to draw attention to important issues.
He adds that one must be prepared with adequate information in order to engage another party in a debate but information that can be obtained in the public domain rarely suffices. He had to tap in on his own network or conduct his own research to gain more knowledge. At times, he would pose parliament questions but would be disappointed by the lack of depth in the answers or the fact that the answers he received would not pertain to his questions. Other times, certain ministries did provide data that was helpful in answering his questions.
Mr Yee says that there were times when ministries did not answer the parliament questions but instead released ministerial statements that addressed the situation at hand.
He concludes his post by reasserting that information asymmetry is not healthy. While it is still possible to obtain information, it can be disruptive if one has to constantly fight and appeal for data.
As such, he recommends introducing a Freedom of Information Act to alleviate this issue, while also inviting ministries to be more transparent when briefing opposition MPs on policy changes that are being planned or carried out.
You Zi Xuan is an intern at The Independent SG. /TISG