A Community Development Council (abbreviation: CDC; Chinese: 社区发展理事会; Malay: Majlis Pembangunan Masyarakat) is a government-led programme to organise grassroot organisations and community programmes into smaller, local units as a bridge between the government and the community. It encourages volunteerism from wider community, and organises community and social assistance programmes with the help of a monetary grant from the government. They are governed by the Community Development Council Rules 1997.
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Organisation
There are currently five CDCs, namely the
- Central Singapore Community Development Council
- North East Community Development Council
- North West Community Development Council
- South East Community Development Council
- South West Community Development Council
The council boundaries follow that of the exising political divisions, with each handling between four to six GRCs and SMCs and roughly dividing the country's population into equal parts. Each CDC is managed by a Council, which in turn is headed by a mayor and has between 12 to 80 members. The members are appointed by the Chairman or Deputy Chairman of the People's Association.
Funding
The CDCs are funded by an annual sum from the government directly proportionate to the number of residents living within their jurisdiction at a rate of S$1 per person. They are free to conduct their own fund-raising programmes, which the government will match S$3 for every S$1 raised. The grant is raised to S$4 per S$1 donated through long-term arrangements, such as via GIRO. The government also pays for the councils' operational costs, including that for its offices.
'8 months bonus' episode in 2009
In the first quarter of 2009, several internet forums postings revealed that two Northwest CDC senior staff allegedly collected 7 months bonuses on top of the 13th month bonus. The incident started attracting Singaporeans' attention when a blogger post his letter addressed to Dr Teo Ho Pin, seeking justification of such generous payouts while the country was facing a recession and expects contraction up to 9% of the country's economy. According the blogger, Northwest CDC's Mayor, Dr Teo Ho Pin did not responded to his queries and the letter was posted at various online websites.
By mid March, it became apparent that more netizens were concerned that the CDC, a quasi government body was 'exceedingly generous' in rewarding selected staff while many Singaporeans faced retrenchments and pay cuts during an ongoing recession in 2009.
The People Association neither confirm nor deny the generous payouts. It states that "only staff at the lower-end of the salary range who will receive a higher performance bonus range. This allows such officers to move closer to the norm of other staff performing the same kind of job, but who have a higher basic monthly pay.”
On 16th March 2009, the People's Association deputy Chairman and senior minister of state, Lim Boon Heng jumped into the fray when he was quizzed by a Channelnewsasia reporter. Lim stated that "Northwest CDC's remuneration system is fair". Lim claimed 7 month bonuses "could be earned by more senior officers as they typically have a lower fixed wage component and higher variable bonuses". Lim further said that Singaporeans "should not begrudge the few people who get very high bonuses", hinting that envious citizens should toned down their dissatisfaction.
However this added fuel to fire when irate netizens pointed out the well paid staff are in fact managers. One blogger claimed that such generous performance bonus 'is given only to officers of a certain rank and above', suggesting possible inconsistencies in the PA and Lim statements.
The People's Assocication remained tight-lipped over netizens queries whether the the two recipients of the 7 month bonuses are low salaried staff. Both PA and Lim refused to reveal the salary range of the two exceptional staff.
Incidentally Dr Teo Ho Pin was recently in limelight earlier when he allegedly told Singaporeans to be “thankful” for the Town Councils for “growing our money”. In fact, the Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council, under Dr Teo's charge, was the biggest loser after losing around $8 million dollars on the ill fated Lehman Brothers' Minibonds.
External links
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