<![CDATA[In Singapore, academics and opposition press the PAP to be less wary over releasing data]>

When Singapore's opposition chief Pritam Singh asked in Parliament earlier this month for a breakdown of the number of new jobs that went to citizens, permanent residents and foreigners, he received a retort: "What is the point behind the question?"

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing, from the ruling People's Action Party, told Singh the government could provide the numbers, but said the "ultimate competition" was not about pitting Singaporeans against permanent residents, and that people in the city state were getting good jobs while wages went up.

It's not the first time requests for detailed data from the government have been met by wariness, according to academics such as Singapore University of Social Sciences economist Walter Theseira.

"The government is concerned the data will be misinterpreted and twisted to push a certain narrative that is not in accordance with reality, and that worry is not unfounded," said Theseira, who is also a Nominated Member of Parliament.

In a Facebook post commenting on the Chan-Singh clash, Senior Minister of State Chee Hong Tat wrote that attempts to "drive a wedge between different groups" must be rejected. "We must ... stand resolute against efforts to stir fear and hatred for political gain," he said in the post.

But communications and media academic Terence Lee from Perth's Murdoch University said these concerns needed to be balanced with transparency.

"[This is especially the case] when questions are raised in Parliament by elected representatives and when the information can lead to positive changes that would benefit society overall," he said, adding that the government was "deliberately evasive" and "unwilling to respect parliamentary protocols" in its exchange with Singh.

Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing. Photo: Reuters

Lee also said the withholding of data could come across as political, explaining: "The government does not want to [dance] to the opposition's tune in Parliament. It doesn't want to give them the upper hand, possibly because the data could be used advantageously by the opposition."

Observers said providing incomplete data made it hard for the public to have informed discussions, while detractors would use what was available according to their agendas anyway.

"Where data is limited or curtailed, then there could be a tendency to infer certain data or to draw a less-than-positive conclusion from such a scenario," said Singapore Management University law don Eugene Tan.

Researchers say better access to local data could boost interest in producing Singapore-centred research, a focus Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung said was important on at least two occasions last year.

Theseira said researchers were worried about getting their findings overturned if they were based on incomplete data. That was the experience of economists Chen Kang and Tan Khee Giap in 2003, when their study on employment based on manpower ministry data was labelled "way off the mark" and rebuked as sensational by then Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen.

Ong said during last year's parliamentary debates as the government sought to enact its anti-fake news law that the economists had relied on incomplete data. He has since tried to address the issue, saying at a summit for Singaporean researchers last August that government agencies can provide various data to researchers.

"We do not have a habit of making this data available, but I think there is now a genuine desire to make them available," he said. There is just one caveat: the research question has to be "good".

"If you knock on the agencies' doors and say can I have all your data, you are not going to get it," Ong said. "But if you [have a specific question that you want answers to], we may be able to work together on it."

Singapore came 17th of 94 nations ranked in the most recent Global Open Data Index. Photo: AFP

Singapore ranked 17th in the most recent Global Open Data Index, published in 2016/2017. Taiwan came top of the index, while Australia and Britain tied for second place.

Tan from Singapore Management University said the Lion City was not alone in choosing to share some data openly and restrict access to others.

On January 16, more than a week after the clash over data in Parliament, trade minister Chan released employment numbers that showed some 60,000 new jobs had been created between 2015 and 2018. Of those jobs, around 83 per cent " or around 50,000 jobs " went to Singaporeans, while more than 9,000 went to permanent residents.

He said that at 5:1, the proportion of permanent residents taking the new jobs was slightly higher than the existing ratio of Singaporeans to permanent residents in the local workforce, which came in about 6:1. This was because the permanent residents taking the new jobs had been "preselected" he said.

Chan added the unemployment rate for Singaporeans and permanent residents was similar, and made assurances that most of the more than 32,000 new jobs that would be created in the next three to five years would go to Singaporeans.

Lee from Murdoch University said he had contacted government departments and agencies for data, only to be directed to a website "or disregarded altogether". He added that he had come to rely solely on data already in the public sphere or conduct his own quantitative and qualitative research.

Sociologist Laavanya Kathiravelu from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, however, has not been put off local research and is trying out Ong's suggestion, asking the Ministry of Education and the Social Science Research Council for more granular data in her bid to study how immigrants and new citizens integrate into the island nation.

Most of the more than 32,000 new jobs created in the next three to five years will go to Singaporeans, according to Trade and Industry Minister Chan. Photo: Bloomberg

She said Singapore had numbers on naturalised citizens, but those are not broken down by country of origin, race, the year they got citizenship, their housing types and income levels.

"These are available in the United States where there are very large and open data sets. We need this to do similar analysis to try and understand which groups integrate better, and if education background impacts that," Laavanya said.

Rather than focusing on "good" research, Theseira from Singapore University of Social Sciences said there should instead be a culture of inquiry. He acknowledged that there was a political risk in being more open with data but a mature research sector and polity was good in the long run. He said data should only be curtailed if it there were security, privacy or public safety issues.

Singapore Management University's Tan said that even in sensitive areas " such as national reserves, new citizens and defence " there should be attempts to see if more information could be disclosed. "It need not be an either-or option," he said, adding that more data could help combat falsehoods if the data was contextualised and interpreted.

Besides, multiple sets of findings could be true even if they appeared contradictory, said Theseira, such as good quality jobs being created for foreigners as well as for Singaporeans.

"It is not the case that one must be untrue for another to be true," he said. "Sometimes, the government treats criticisms as an attack on the integrity of public institutions and reacts strongly to restore public confidence, but what would really help is an educated discourse and that includes contrasting research."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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