Enforcing town councils’ duties of financial prudence: Problems addressed by the Town Councils (Amendment) Act 2017

• Main Author: ONG, Benjamin Joshua
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: Singapore; town councils; local government; Housing and Development Board; Town Councils Act; Town Councils (Amendment) Act; Asian Studies; Banking and Finance Law; Business Organizations Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/2841; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/4799/viewcontent/6639_Benjamin_Joshua_Ong___Enforcing_Town_Councils_Duties_of_Financial_Prudence__Published_on_e_First_18_October_2018_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This article discusses the means by which a TownCouncil’s statutory duties, particularly its duties of financial prudence, maybe enforced. It studies the law as it was prior to 2017 and reveals variousconceptual and practical problems, the result of which was that it was possiblefor a Town Council to fail to perform its statutory duties and face onlyminimal consequences. This article willprovide a background to some of the new statutory procedures introduced in the2017 amendments to the Town Councils Act, which solve the problems from whichthe previous law suffered. It is hoped that this will shed light on the historyof the 2017 amendments and how they may be applied. This article also highlights the problem of howconditions attached to grants made by the Government to Town Councils are to beenforced, which is an outstanding issue which has not been addressed by the2017 amendments and which represents potential for future development of thelaw.