Ronald Reagan wrote in his own handwriting in April 1981, soon into his first year as US president, and I quote:

" that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes tend to forget that great truth and we never should."

Government, therefore, exists for the people and must deliver according to the wishes of the people.

In our country, the concept of the government's power being voluntarily granted to it by the people is questionable. There is no level-playing field as yet for aspiring political parties to communicate to the electorates. Voters are deemed immature and easily manipulated on racial and religious grounds.

Within such a context, we do need proactive leadership to lead the majority of the people. But without any form of check and control, we should not merely hope that such leadership will also be responsible to the people. There should exist some form of constructive mechanisms to ensure that this is indeed so. And I believe a free press is an essential part of such check and control mechanisms.

If our government intends to deliver to the people, a responsible free press is needed as a valuable strategic partner to work with. It is not to be taken as a discomfort that should be controlled, contained and directed to express only the official view of the government, most of which are, of late, unfortunately downright unacceptable and offensive to our educated minds.

Presently, who among us can trust the mainstream media anymore? The ramification of such distrust in turn has caused the government to develop a terrible siege mentality as if all we people have nothing to do but to constantly criticise the government.

Before it is too late, our political leadership must learn to listen to the voices of the people and this can be best achieve through an independent, mature and responsible free press.