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| Budget 2006:
An opportunity to engage Singaporeans |
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| The students
developing their mini budget statements through
“Voice Your Choice” on the Budget
Website. |
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The
Budget for FY2006 was presented to Parliament on
17 February this year. For some civil servants,
the Budget is an annual ritual of preparing revenue
and expenditure estimates, drafting responses for
the Committee of Supply and other such rigmarole.
For many Singaporeans, the Budget is about tax cuts
and handouts, with little interest beyond what the
“goodies” the Budget has to offer them.
But the Budget is really much more than that.
Through the annual Budget, the Government sets its
priorities for the country and articulates how these
priorities are to be achieved.
For example, this year’s Budget is about supporting
the upgrading and restructuring of the Singapore
economy, based on differentiating ourselves from
others by competing on trust, quality and innovation.
It also helps Singaporeans move forward together
with a comprehensive package of measures to help
lower wage workers and surplus sharing measures
that give more to those who have less.
Over the last one year, there has been much talk
about engaging Singaporeans, especially younger
Singaporeans, so that they feel a stronger sense
of ownership and belonging. The Budget Team in the
Ministry of Finance (MOF) decided to play its part
by engaging Singaporeans through the annual Budget.
In many ways, we already seek public inputs for
tax and budget initiatives. Before the Budget each
year, we work with the Feedback Unit to organise
feedback sessions with grassroots and business groups.
We also conduct focus group consultations on specific
tax issues. But we believed there was more we could
do to reach out to a broader base of Singaporeans,
especially younger Singaporeans. And we thought
that our Budget Website would provide a relatively
effective and cost-efficient way to do so.
We already had a Web-based tool called “Voice
Your Choice” on our Budget Website which allowed
members of the public to test their own spending
priorities for the country and find out if they
were balancing the budget or running a surplus or
deficit. We decided to complement this by introducing
a new feedback portal to allow the public to share
their views on the Budget.
In the past, we launched the Budget Website about
two weeks prior to Budget Day. This year, we launched
the website a full month before Budget Day to give
the public more time to access the materials on
the Budget and to submit their feedback.
This proved to be an effective strategy as the number
of visits to the Budget Website prior to Budget
Day came up to 40,000, more than double the number
in previous years. During that period, more than
2,000 responses were received through “Voice
Your Choice” and the feedback portal combined.
We received some valuable and interesting comments.
The respondents were mainly concerned with social
issues, with many suggesting more assistance for
low income workers and the elderly.
Many Singaporeans of working age (26 to 55 years)
were also concerned about the cost of living, particularly
in the areas of healthcare, housing, transport and
childcare.
Older Singaporeans were concerned about retrenchment,
and recommended that more retraining and unemployment
insurance
be provided.
To address possible revenue shortfalls in the future,
a large number of respondents asked that the Government
raise taxes on vices: gambling, liquor and tobacco.
Another popular vote was for more progressive taxation,
e.g. lower personal income tax rates for those in
the lower income brackets, higher taxes for the
wealthy. These responses were all noted by MOF for
internal review.
Going beyond the website, we co-organised a pre-Budget
forum with the Singapore Management University.
Called “If You Were the Finance Minister”,
it brought together youths from junior colleges
and universities to talk about Budget priorities.
The students tried their hands at “Voice Your
Choice” and developed and gamely debated their
own mini budget statements.
In true Public Service style, one prospective “Minister”
even shortened his campaign slogan to an acronym,
SLLG, which stood for “Short-term Loss, Long-term
Gain”.
In the end, the students’ vote went to Ms
Jovine Loy, who developed a budget with a heavy
emphasis on raising expenditure on education and
healthcare, boosting economic growth and helping
small and medium enterprises. Her budget’s
tagline, “Staying Ahead, Staying Together”,
turned out to be such an apt summary of the Government’s
FY2006 Budget that it was subsequently incorporated
as the theme for the Prime Minister’s Round-up
Speech for the Budget Debate.
Overall, the students felt that the session had
provided much illumination on how the Budget was
important to the country and how even youngsters
like them should be interested in the Budget.
While the excitement over Budget 2006 may be winding
down, the process of citizen engagement is by no
means over.
In fact, in preparation for the next Budget cycle,
the Government will continue to communicate with
people and the stakeholders in our economy, to determine
where further improvements to policies and adjustments
to spending priorities can be made.
Through such an enhanced engagement process, the
work of the Government will gain new significance
from the viewpoint of our ultimate customer —
the Singapore citizen.
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| A student
presenting his budget statement. |
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By
MOF
Next: A fillip for e-learning |
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