AHPETC AHPETC AHPETC - A Big Ponzi Scheme

Reader's Contribution

 

Many WP supporters rejoiced when they won Aljunied GRC but none, I suspected, was half as happy as Mr Low Thia Khiang himself. He was happy because:

1. he and his team now gets $15,000 each of taxpayers money per month - biggest paycheck of their lives (except  Chen Show Mao)

2. his friends and supporters get millions in contracts from town councils work ($26 million)

3. Most importantly and least well known - the win was just in time to save his own town council from bankruptcy.

Since the alarm bells on the Aljunied town council was raised by its own accountants, I decided to take a closer look at the financial figures.
 

 

Here's what I found out -

Hougang was already running a deficit of $9,000 - and an operating deficit of more than $90,000. (This is a concern flagged by its own accountant).

Hougang saved from bankruptcy only because WP won in neighbouring Aljunied and used its surpluses to plug the big hole in Hougang. 

This is called "co-mingling". It means taking in a nice fat cow, slaughtering it to feed the hungry beast that is Hougang.

Today Aljunied - 29 per cent in arrears - is a far larger feral beast. Who is the next fat cow marked out for slaughter?

101 questions, zero answers 

To be sure, running a town council is not easy. But they didn't win an election on "easy".  They don't get $15,000 a month for kissing babies and selling The Hammer.

If they can't do it, better come clean and let the residents know right now. Don't mess around with people's money.

If they continue this mismanagement, they can only stay afloat by following what other Ponzi schemes do -  focus on winning another adjoining ward in order to bail out Aljunied eventually.

And we have seen since 2011 - the WP is very good at politics. They can't format correctly for MND, they can't keep track of whether they clean ceilings but they run a helluva campaign.

But we don't need campaigning to run a town council. What we need is someone to take charge and do better over the boring stuff - emptying bins, trimming trees, sweeping floors and managing day to day municipal issues.

Sort out the engineering operational problems on the ground. Take a hard look at financial regulations. Count and tally up accounts manually if necessary. 

Just. Fix. The. Damn. Mess.

But that's not the WP. (Something so tedious and stodgy - that's sounds more like PAP!)

Like many of my friends, I am not a fan of PAP. But today, my eyes are open to what WP is doing.

The money problems in the town council has come to light only because their own auditors would not pass their accounts - if this didn't happen, then the rot would have continued and what happened to Hougang would repeat itself in Aljunied. 

I live near Aljunied. I can see that my ward and theirs - on the surface - there is not much difference. We get uncleared rubbish here, same as there. We have problems, and some part of me still wants more checks on the PAP.

But next GE, I am not going to be the guy who pays SC and C so that Aljunied can cover up its deficit. 

It's my fat cow - I am going to fight tooth and nail to make sure it stays alive and well.