WHEN Singapore introduced a vehicle quota system in 1990 to control car ownership, people vented their anger on their MPs and in a flurry of letters to the press.
This, despite a 16-month effort to gain the people's acceptance through, among others, parliamentary debate, dialogues and even a two-day televised Select Committee hearing, with experts and interest groups giving their views on car usage to a panel of MPs.
However, in 1998, many changed their tune when a Government Parliamentary Committee reviewing the system did not rule out scrapping the certificate of entitlement (COE) for buying a motor vehicle.
Exercise caution, they urged in their letters to the press.
That the system gained acceptance over time is a hopeful lesson on how tough policies can be politically saleable.
The system essentially requires people to bid every fortnight for a fixed number of COEs, which let them buy and put a car on the road.
The COE idea was proposed by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew when he was Prime Minister. But observers point to the second-generation leaders for adopting a consultative approach before implementing the system.
As then-communications and information minister Yeo Ning Hong noted in 1990: "Everybody participated: the man-in-the-street, academics, professionals, political parties, trade organisations and MPs."
Still, after the COE was introduced on May 1, 1990, people complained bitterly about the escalating cost of car COEs. They soared to as much as $110,500 in November 1994.
Criticisms led to a few nips and tucks.
In September 1991, COEs were made non-transferable after would-be car owners argued that speculators were driving up their prices.
In April 2002, an open bidding system was set up, letting bidders see the going rate, so they do not bid blindly.
Transport Minister Raymond Lim believes the policy gained acceptance because it has eased road congestion by reducing vehicle population growth from 6 per cent to 3 per cent.
He notes that had Singapore not introduced the quota system, and let vehicle population grow at 6 per cent per year from 1990, the numbers would have swelled to 1.4 million by 2006, instead of the 800,000 recorded that year, or 75 per cent more.
Letting the market set its price also made the policy more palatable, he adds. "It can be $100,000 or $100. That demand is set by the participants in the particular market."
Agreeing, transport expert Paul Barter of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy says: "One of the clever things about COE prices is they are a little bit depoliticised. Nobody hits the Transport Minister on the head when prices go up because they know it's the market."
