Bonjour.

The People's Association (PA) recently responded to why opposition MPs cannot be grassroots advisors. The full copy of the reply was published here and is attached below.

WE REFER to Mr Muhammad Yusuf Osman's letter yesterday ('Advisers to grassroots bodies should be elected MPs').

The mission of the People's Association (PA) and its grassroots organisations (GROs) is to bond the community and connect people with the Government. PA and its GROs serve all residents regardless of their political affiliations in fulfilling their role.

Grassroots advisers are appointed by PA, a statutory board. Besides connecting people to people, grassroots advisers are required to help the Government connect with people and help promote government policies and programmes such as anti-dengue and active ageing.

Hence, the Government has to appoint grassroots advisers who support its programmes and can play this role well. Opposition MPs cannot be expected to do this and thus cannot become advisers to GROs.

Ooi Hui Mei (Ms) 
Director 
Corporate and Marketing Communications 
For Chief Executive Director 
People's Association

I find the reply extremely disturbing and I am appalled by the attitude shown by the writer. 

First of all, the mission of the PA is indeed to bond the community, but most certainly not to connect people with the Government. The mission was set out in the People's Association Act and I'll attach an excerpt below. You may see the full act here.

Objects of Association
8. The objects of the Association are —

(a) the organisation and the promotion of group participation in social, cultural, educational and athletic activities for the people of Singapore in order that they may realise that they belong to a multiracial community, the interests of which transcend sectional loyalties;

(b) the establishment of such institutions as may be necessary for the purpose of leadership training in order to instil in leaders a sense of national identity and a spirit of dedicated service to a multiracial community;

(c) the fostering of community bonding and strengthening of social cohesion amongst the people of Singapore;

No where does it state that it's purpose is to connect people with the Government.

Even if this meaning was implied, the Government does not comprise solely of the PAP, seeing that there's a fundamental difference between the ruling party and the Government. Opposition MPs should also be included as part of the Government. This view is echoed by the Workers' Party and the Singapore People's Party alike, and the SPP response can be found here; I can't seem to find the WP press release at this time. I've quoted an excerpt below (emphasis mine). 

The People’s Association (PA) was explicitly created to blur the line between Government and the PAP, to consolidate the PAP’s grip on power. In its letter in the forum page, the PA confirms this by insinuating that Opposition MPs will not support apolitical government programmes like “Active-Aging” and “Anti-Dengue”. This is slanderous and Opposition MPs past and present deserve an apology from the PA for saying this.

I cannot emphasize how true this is. Any person, be it a banker or a student would agree that anti-dengue programmes are crucial – let alone politicians. To suggest that the opposition MPs are against these measures is just pure stupidity and definitely bordering on slanderous (my POV). The opposition afterall exists not to oppose the policies implemented (and by extension, the way policies are implemented) but to represent views of a certain slice of the population, and it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise. 

To sum it all up, I'll quote from the CIA case study of the PA and another blog post I found extremely insightful.

... the program delibrerately confused the roles of government and party so that the people tended to praise the party for activities undertaken by the government. Funded by the government but exploited by the ruling party...

– CIA Case Study

... the PA's time is past. The PA was formed in a time when the people were divided between left-wingers (the Barisan Sosialis) and democratic socialists (the PAP). Today, the nation is divided still, this time between the PAP and various opposition parties. This time, the PA is dividing the people, by favouring the PAP over the opposition, and by making insinuations about the opposition. If it ever were a nation builder, the PA is one no more. Instead, it insists on continuing its historic mission of promoting government policies, and blurring the government and the party, without adjusting to political 

– Benjamin Cheah