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Chitchat WP just get whacked and whacked.

winnipegjets

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SINGAPORE — A “pervasive” culture of systemic weaknesses in the Workers’ Party-run Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC), including lax enforcement of ethical practices, has been flagged by audit firm KPMG.

And remedying the situation would require no less than the town councillors stepping up to “reset the tone at the top of AHTC” to emphasise “competence and accountability”, it added.

The firm’s findings prompted the Housing and Development Board to express its “grave concern”, as it noted the urgent need for AHTC to take “immediate steps” on the systemic weaknesses highlighted by KPMG.

It also added: “As large sums of public monies are at stake, AHTC also needs to account to its residents and the public whether any monies have been lost as a result of these lapses.”

In a 43-page report posted by AHTC on its website on Wednesday, KPMG — which was appointed by the town council on court orders to help fix compliance and governance lapses following a protracted legal tussle — said it had identified a further 70 “control failures” after four months of work. These cut across key areas of governance, financial control and reporting, procurement and records management over five years.

They come on top of the 115 “control failures” that had been identified earlier through a special audit by the Auditor-General’s Office and the town council’s statutory auditors. It also said the town council would take at least 18 months to remedy the “pervasive” lapses in its operations, noting that progress to remedy these failures has been slow.

The report, posted by AHTC on its website on Wednesday, is the fourth by KPMG since its appointment, and wraps up its work on recommending ways to fix 17 audit points that had been flagged in AHTC previously.

Among the issues flagged was AHTC’s “extensive use of manual journal entries” in its payments to third parties. These transactions, involving more than S$60 million worth of payments, had bypassed the accounting system that the town council’s finance department uses to oversee movement of money. There were more than 48,500 such entries, made between May 2011 and November 2015.

The use of this “highly irregular shortcut” made it “practically impossible” to have effective oversight of these transactions, the firm said. It added: “Such large-scale use of this practice raises questions about the management of AHTC’s finance function. Consequently, it is easier for duplicate payments or fictitious payments to be made without being detected.”

In addition, KPMG noted that the issues at AHTC are “larger than the sum of individual lapses”. Even if all of the control failures are individually remedied, “compliance with the Town Councils Act (TCA) will not be sustainable unless Town Councillors and senior management set the right tone at the top”, it said. The town council, it said, appeared to see the control failures as requiring “short-term fixes” and “historical explanation”. But doing so can undermine compliance by failing to address the shortfalls in the environment more generally, the firm said.

Noting that the TCA governs with a light touch and elected town councillors are ultimately accountable to residents through the parliamentary election process, “the right tone at the top is all the more important”, it added.

In a media release on Wednesday, AHTC said it will review the work processes of the town council and, in particular, the finance and investment and audit committees, and appoint more professionals with relevant financial experience to serve on these committees. It has also called a tender for a new Town Council Accounting System, which will facilitate and automate reporting of financial information, and it will appoint an internal auditor to provide independent assurance that AHTC’s risk management, governance and internal control processes are operating effectively.

In response to queries, AHTC chairman Pritam Singh said they “accept fully” KPMG’s urging to set the right tone, seeing it as a requirement to improve the current governance structure.

Asked if the town council would consider engaging a Managing Agent — it switched to direct management after an earlier tender to appoint one drew no response — Mr Singh said they have not ruled out the possibility.
 

winnipegjets

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This is a useless Official Opposition ...instead of holding the government accountable, the government is whacking it every few weeks.
 

winnipegjets

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KPMG — which was appointed by the town council on court orders to help fix compliance and governance lapses following a protracted legal tussle

The Official Opposition should dictate the narrative instead of the PAP says whatever it wants.

The fact is that the PAP used the court to put its lackey, KPMG, to run the AHTC. The WP should set that as a narrative.

Sinkees are pretty stupid and needs to be told over and over again. Unless the WP starts to educate sinkees, it should step down and let CSJ lead the Official Opposition.
 

winnipegjets

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KMPG is going to continue milking AHTC for another 18 months; the lackey of the PAP claims that it needs that long to address the problems with AHTC.

AHTC should call in a reputable foreign accounting firm to challenge the KPMG findings.

Lapses are subjective opinions. KPMG was engaged by the AGO ...off course, it had to come up with something - in this case, lapses - to justify their engagement. KPMG could not find anything substantial to support a criminal charge against the WP TC.

But the PAP is not giving up in its attempt to have a de facto control of the WP TC. Thus, the appointment of KPMG. KPMG is NOT independent but acting for the PAP government, while milking the coffers of the AHTC. AHTC should make a big deal of this and show how much cost it is incurring because of the PAP's control.
 

mojito

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Temporary clearing accounts are really bad shit. A lot of unauthorized payments can go undetected for months whether it is from WP or an errant staff. Think Barings and SocGen. It was unlikely to be intentional on the part of WP since they have indicated a desire to correct it. What it highlight is how unprepared the TC was in dealing with day to day operations. winnipegjets you are really off the rails for this one.
 

frenchbriefs

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Asset
so recording transactions by hand or manually is considered systemic weaknesses and lack of enforcement of ethical practises?if there was any intention to steal or defraud it would have been a few isolated incidents commited by a staff or some third party and would not be a sign of systemic lapse of ethical practises and would have been obvious,instead of beating around the bush,out of 45,000 manual entries,have they found any fictitious payments or long history of money siphoning or misappropriating?why dont they charge WP Town councilors already?
 

shittypore

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"Among the issues flagged was AHTC’s “extensive use of manual journal entries” in its payments to third parties. These transactions, involving more than S$60 million worth of payments, had bypassed the accounting system that the town council’s finance department uses to oversee movement of money. There were more than 48,500 such entries, made between May 2011 and November 2015"

Only WP LTK will noe if it was a field day for tos running the Town Council at Aljunied. He shld be very concerned if these 48,500 entries slip his attention!
 

winnipegjets

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Asset
so recording transactions by hand or manually is considered systemic weaknesses and lack of enforcement of ethical practises?if there was any intention to steal or defraud it would have been a few isolated incidents commited by a staff or some third party and would not be a sign of systemic lapse of ethical practises and would have been obvious,instead of beating around the bush,out of 45,000 manual entries,have they found any fictitious payments or long history of money siphoning or misappropriating?why dont they charge WP Town councilors already?

KPMG should talk to Ministar Khaw ...Khaw said a while back that estate management system is just like an excel sheet. So, WP TC is using excel sheet to do those manual entries ...what is the problem?
 

winnipegjets

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"Among the issues flagged was AHTC’s “extensive use of manual journal entries” in its payments to third parties. These transactions, involving more than S$60 million worth of payments, had bypassed the accounting system that the town council’s finance department uses to oversee movement of money. There were more than 48,500 such entries, made between May 2011 and November 2015"

Only WP LTK will noe if it was a field day for tos running the Town Council at Aljunied. He shld be very concerned if these 48,500 entries slip his attention!

Manual entries no problem if they reconcile with banking records. Also, there is audit trail in excel.

KPMG trying to justify why it needs to stay on for another 18 months! AHTC is a readied cow for milking to pay the PAP cronies in KPMG.

Also, remember, it is the PAP $2 company that didn't want AHTC to use their software. Wonder why? Maybe the $2 company was afraid that AHTC can see how that software is used by PAP TC to makan money?
 

winnipegjets

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Asset
Temporary clearing accounts are really bad shit. A lot of unauthorized payments can go undetected for months whether it is from WP or an errant staff. Think Barings and SocGen. It was unlikely to be intentional on the part of WP since they have indicated a desire to correct it. What it highlight is how unprepared the TC was in dealing with day to day operations. winnipegjets you are really off the rails for this one.

Aiyoh, this is a PAP ploy to fix the Opposition lah.

The AGO paid big bucks to the two KPMG partners, one was a forensic accountant, and they came out with nothing then. They can only make subjective conclusions. Now, this embedded team come out with more lapses. The KPMG team will keep finding lapses because they those lapses are subjective.
 

aerobwala

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Kidding me, 185 control points failure ? How many more forms do they want to create to satisfy these control requirments, aside those that they have no problem with it ?
 

shittypore

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Manual entries no problem if they reconcile with banking records. Also, there is audit trail in excel.

KPMG trying to justify why it needs to stay on for another 18 months! AHTC is a readied cow for milking to pay the PAP cronies in KPMG.

Also, remember, it is the PAP $2 company that didn't want AHTC to use their software. Wonder why? Maybe the $2 company was afraid that AHTC can see how that software is used by PAP TC to makan money?

The issue here is Aljunied Town Council, if there was no corruption leegally all is fine. Kpmg needs to milk Aljunied TC for another 18 mths leegally, how much will be the approx. Fees for another 18 mths bleeding, tis all would like to know?
 

scroobal

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WP should go for MA tender again. They should also demand that 60% HDB owned EMS must provide a bid. Failing which they refuse to manage the TC and make a political stand.

On the hand I am wondering and I am sure others as well how Low and Chiam successfully ran Hougang and Potong Pasir successfully. I am mindful that ex PAP MPs help cripple the TC by buying the accounting software for $1.
 

CABcommander

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If PAP run TCs are subjected to that kind of stringent audits WP went through, they will probably have at least 1000 lapses in each PAP TC.
 

rodent2005

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"Among the issues flagged was AHTC’s “extensive use of manual journal entries” in its payments to third parties.

Before computers were invented, all accounting entries were manual journal entries in one sense or the other. So all companies were in some sort of failures before the advent of computers?
 

myfoot123

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This is a useless Official Opposition ...instead of holding the government accountable, the government is whacking it every few weeks.

Depends on what kind of government. This PAP government is denying its way to the coffin for non accountability nor transparency. It makes use of PUBLIC resource, kangaroo court and threat to shield its own corruption and than mess it up during their reign such that it will take 50 men-year for the president to painstakingly clean it up if PAP allowed themselves to be cleaned.
 

greedy and cunning

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Aiyoh, this is a PAP ploy to fix the Opposition lah.

The AGO paid big bucks to the two KPMG partners, ...............................

:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
the dead creature set fixing the opposition as one of the main KPI ,
the pinky son admitted openly.
end of year assessment/bonus coming soon.
so a lot of fixing to do.

wooden says : no fixing I worry.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
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