Open Letter to Png Eng Huat (Hougang Town Council)

OPEN LETTER TO PNG ENG HUAT: DID HOUGANG TOWN COUNCIL HAVE A SURPLUS OR DEFICIT?

Dear Mr Png,

On 2 September, you gave a good rally speech on how Hougang town council had a surplus when it merged its account with Aljunied GRC on 26 May 2011.

But as a citizen and voter, I feel it’s my duty to speak up when I’m not sure if it’s the truth. I need to know I can vote people I trust, so I hope you can shed light on this.

I was told that Hougang town council may not be as good as you painted it to be – before 2011, Hougang town council was in deficit every year for 3 years:

FY2008/09 - deficit about $96k

FY2009/10 - deficit about $102k

FY2010/11 - deficit about $92k

You said in your speech that when Hougang TC merged its account with Aljunied on 26 May 2011, Hougang TC had a surplus. But I was also told that actually your auditors said that in the financial year ending 31 Mar 2011, your TC registered a net deficit of about $91k. I find it hard to believe, but is it true? This date is very close to the 26 May date, how come?

Apparently your auditor said they were not sure whether you had enough operating funds for daily operations, and your management had been exploring ways to improve the financial position of Hougang TC. What kinds of ways did your management explore?

There is talk that the surplus in Aljunied was used to cover the deficit in Hougang after the 2011 elections. Could that be the way your management improved the financial position of Hougang TC? I hope not…

Thanks Mr Png for taking time to clear up my doubts. It would also help if you could open your accounts and let the public see the Hougang TC audit reports from 2008 to 2011. 

Then we can know for sure.

Keep up the good work!

A Voter

Open Letter by a Concerned Resident to Ms Sylvia Lim

Open Letter by a Concerned Resident to Ms Sylvia Lim

 

Dear Ms Lim,

 

First of all, thank you for stepping up and speaking-up for average Singaporeans like myself.

 

As a resident of Aljunied, I have been following the AHPETC saga closely as it afterall concerns me and my family. My husband and I, despite what the Government says, believe that you are an honest person and do not know of the huge profits that FMSS has made off the TC. This is a case of you trusting the wrong people who in the end succumbed to greed. Coffee-shop talk is that they are all Mr Low’s trusted friends and if this is the case, I can understand the difficult situation you must have been in all these years as a Chairman of the TC without control over the officers of FMSS.

 

While I do agree that there may be some political motivation on behalf of MND, I also believe in the adage that there is no smoke without fire. So since they have now highlighted certain gaps or lapses in AHPETC which is difficult to deny, I hope that you will now pay more attention to the details and sort out the problem. I believe as the opposition, you would be given some leeway by the public as experience takes time to acquire.

 

To be honest, from a resident's perspective, I really don't bother how much the MA earns as long as I do not pay more than what is fair and I get good service. My only concern is whether the issues raised by MND will affect the house I live in and to a greater extent the resale value of my house.

 

As a Singaporean, I believe we all want the same thing - a country that is democratic and based on justice and equality. At the coming GE, my family and I will continue to give you and the WP our support because we believe you need a chance to grow and gain experience. But you must be upfront with us all and acknowledge when something is wrong and then give us your word that you will sort things out. We will respect and trust you for it.

 

A Resident and Supporter

AHPETC Court Case - An Open Letter to Ms Sylvia Lim

An Open Letter to Ms Sylvia Lim

Dear Ms Sylvia Lim,

I am not your resident. I live in East Coast. But I hope you will not ignore me.

In Parliament Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam outlined some questions for the town councilors of AHPETC including:

1. Why did they not comply with normal accounting standards, resulting in millions of dollars in related party transactions?

2. Did they know that the managing agent FMSS was owned by a husband and wife team who were Workers’ Party supporters? Why was FMSS paid $1.6 million more per year compared to other town councils?

3. How much profit did FMSS make? How much were the husband and wife paid?

All these are valid questions. Instead of answering them, MP Pritam Singh stood up in Parliament and said he answered only to residents. If the Law Minister was a resident, said Mr Singh, he would answer him.

This is ridiculous. It has been many weeks since the Parliamentary sitting.

I pay S and C fees and I want some answers too. These are questions that ought to be publicly debated, not just whispered in shadows and coffee shops.

Mr Shanmugam is the Law Minister, and he says what the town councillors did was “unlawful”, taking money from the man in the street and giving it to their friends through town council operations.

He says: “Maybe there was no one taking money through the backdoor in the dark of the night - because the money was going out in broad daylight through the front door.”

Maybe, maybe not, but maybe is not good enough for me. I want to know for sure. It’s time all of us, residents or not, got some answers.

After all, if you are coming to my ward in the next GE, I want to know that my sinking funds are safe.

Joshua Lim

Aljunied Resident's Open Letter to Sylvia Lim

Subject: Corporate Governance in Aljunied, or lack thereof

 

Dear Ms Lim,

 

I am an accountant and I live in Aljunied.

The Worker’s Party took over the town council in Aljunied in 2011. You are a small party, and it is the first time that you had won a GRC. I know it’s not easy to take over something so big, so I was prepared for some slip ups in service. Maybe cleanliness will drop. But money must be taken seriously.

Today, I can see that there is something very wrong. Those of us who pay S&CC are subsidizing those who don’t – most people realize from the numbers that the two-thirds who pay are subsidizing the one-third that are not.

But there is a deeper story that the numbers are telling. From MND's Town Council Management Report, arrears in Aljunied climbed from 2.6% in 2010 to 8.4% in 2011 after merger with Hougang TC. At the end of April 2013, it was a staggering 29.4%! The national norm is just 3%. This shows that you are likely taking the money from Aljunied and using it to cover the hole in Hougang. What makes matters worst, is that the hole is also getting bigger because they are not collecting money properly.

I read in Zaobao that Mr Low Thia Khiang says there is no need to worry about arrears. This is the same problem that he had in Hougang. He says, don’t worry residents will pay up. Take the compassionate approach, give them time. In the meantime, it is business as usual. But that’s not how he solved the problem in Hougang! He solved it by taking the fat cow of Aljunied, and slaughtering it to feed the big hole in his own ward. Before merging with Hougang, Aljunied had $3.3 million surplus – within two years, it had a deficit of $734,000.

How did it burn up $4 million in two years?!

The deficit numbers are those for 2011. God knows what they are today. I actually can’t see very much of what is going on in Aljunied.  I read that AHPETC refuses to file its mandatory report on arrears. But it’s likely that with Aljunied, we will have an even bigger hole.

A few years down the line, who is going to cover the Aljunied hole? We know that more than $20 million is unaccounted for in the town council accounts, project management fees are paid, and conservancy fees are written off. WP’s own auditors have refused to sign off on the accounts. That’s why the Finance Minister asked the Auditor General to go through the 2012 accounts.

The Workers’ Party says there are “takeover issues”. I understand the politics (I don’t really follow politics but I understand that there are political arguments), but as an accountant, I want to ask:

1. Why are the S&CC collections so bad? The other opposition run town councils do not have this problem. And why did the numbers drop so badly after the merger with Hougang? Is it because Aljunied is plugging the leak in Hougang?

2. Your surpluses have dropped from plus $3.3 million to minus $734,000. Why did this happen? Did the town council lose $4 million in two years? Why didn’t they pay into the sinking funds?

3. What are the processes in place for arrears? I am ok with people in difficulty getting some slack, but surely this cannot be 16,000 households! It’s not fair that 39,000 of us are taking care of these 16,000 – and not getting any information about why they don’t have to pay. Does the Town Council have some kind of welfare committee that assesses these people? Or they just don’t care who doesn’t pay?

Maybe I am wrong to just look at the numbers. Maybe there are larger issues at play. But I think we have to recognize that there is an issue of governance. You can’t just say “Ok, this is the price we have to pay for politics.”

These are questions that the media, the PAP MPs and even members of the public should be asking. But I know that many people, even the Straits Times, are scared of questioning the Worker’s Party nowadays. Try it and you see all the online people scolding you.

But numbers don’t lie.
 

As we tell our clients, accounting is difficult. But accountability is simple. You either did the right thing, or you did wrong.

Facts I have found from Internet ...

1. The WP town council is managed by FM Solutions and Services (FMSS), a company set up four days after the WP won Aljunied in the 2011 elections. FMSS is the “managing agent” (MA) and is owned by a husband and wife team, both strong supporters of WP

2. The town council has given away more than $26 million in contracts to them - $5.2 million without a tender. This MA is paid 50% more than PAP town councils – and this year, the rates might hit 70% more. So they pay more but they are very bad at collection in S&CC.

3. During the debate in Parliament, you, the chairman of the town council explained the managing agent rates. Her estimate of the MA rate for FY2012 was $7.58 (more than 50% higher than the Tampines rate of $4.99).  At $7.58, the MA contract value for the whole estate for 3 years is $15.8 million. But Ms Lim, you had declared to HDB that the contract value was $16.8 million.

Accounting is difficult. But accountability is simple. You can’t take money in Aljunied and use it to cover the hole in Hougang. Who is going to cover Aljunied next year?

I look forward to hearing your reply.