In addition to being irresponsible and non-transparent in the spending of public monies belonging to their town council, Workers' Party is also a great waster of taxpayers' money as they take everyone on a merry-go-round just to appoint an independent accountant to oversee the disbursement of grants and to recover lost money for their town council.
First they mounted a rigorous defence against MND's application to the court to ask the court to appoint independent accountants.
The court then asked the town council to appoint their own independent accountant - subject to HDB's approval.
And now the town council has applied to the court to appoint an independent accountant for them.
We are right back where it all began. Sigh!
If the court decides to allow MND's choice of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the accountant, what will Workers' Party do? Fight the court's decision?
One wonders WHY appointing an accountant just to oversee the disbursement of government grants to the town council and to recover whatever money that was lost in the past is such a big issue for WP to waste so much time and taxpayers' money disagreeing over their appointment.
Meanwhile, who suffer? The residents of course.:oIo::oIo:
HDB raises concerns about AHTC's choice of accountant....
The town council wants to appoint Business Assurance - a sole proprietorship founded in 2014 - as its accountant, however HDB has raised questions about the expertise and experience of WP's choice.
HDB's lawyer said Business Assurance lacks relevant expertise and experience and does not even have a two-year operational track record. There is also no indication it has experience auditing public institutions that include town councils, and the firm lacks adequate manpower resources for the task at hand, the housing board added.
HDB suggests that one of Singapore's four major accounting firms be appointed instead to fix accounting and governance lapses at the Workers' Party-run town council.
The court ordered an adjournment and directed AHTC to file an affidavit to respond to HDB's queries because AHTC had not responded to a written request sent by HDB earlier this week seeking further information on the town council's proposed accounting agent Business Assurance.
AHTC has until Monday to address HDB's queries on Business Assurance.
MND and HDB also said that AHTC "tried unsucessfully to limit the accountants' terms of reference" and that the Court of Appeal dismissed the town council's attempt to seek legal costs and disbursements from MND and HDB for the hearings before the High Court and the appeals court. Instead, the apex court agreed with HDB and MND's submission that each of the parties should bear their own legal costs.
It's really a sad day for Singapore to witness how our local politics has sunk to this level of puerile antics. From the surface, this may look as though the underdog WP is trying blatantly to hire a small but experienced and qualified Accounting Firm to handles their Town Council Accounts. What possible reasons are there for WP to so? Think first and foremost, let's look at COST. Small firm vs a BIG International Accounting firm or BIG 4 or 3 now? Saving cost for the Town Council means saving tax payers money. The intention is good. The next reason I can think of is precedence. If I remember correctly, the whole Town Council Saga started right after the 2011 General Election. The company AIM if anyone could remember, is a 2 dollars company setup to undertake and manage the Town Council software for Singapore. However, AIM the company has neither the experience, track record, qualification nor expertize to handle it but somehow or other they got the deal, despite the availability of BIG local and international IT companies in Singapore. I wonder what was the secret abilities that AIM processes that the others are lacking. Maybe, the owners of AIM, who incidentally happened to be Hard-cored veteran PAP cadres, can shed some light on these. Maybe they were smoking the same weed? Who knows. Well, if AIM can so can BA. So why are they still bickering?
GE 2015 was over more than 100 days yet the smear campaign remains
It's really a sad day for Singapore to witness how our local politics has sunk to this level of puerile antics. From the surface, this may look as though the underdog WP is trying blatantly to hire a small but experienced and qualified Accounting Firm to handles their Town Council Accounts. What possible reasons are there for WP to so? Think first and foremost, let's look at COST. Small firm vs a BIG International Accounting firm or BIG 4 or 3 now? Saving cost for the Town Council means saving tax payers money. The intention is good. The next reason I can think of is precedence. If I remember correctly, the whole Town Council Saga started right after the 2011 General Election. The company AIM if anyone could remember, is a 2 dollars company setup to undertake and manage the Town Council software for Singapore. However, AIM the company has neither the experience, track record, qualification nor expertize to handle it but somehow or other they got the deal, despite the availability of BIG local and international IT companies in Singapore. I wonder what was the secret abilities that AIM processes that the others are lacking. Maybe, the owners of AIM, who incidentally happened to be Hard-cored veteran PAP cadres, can shed some light on these. Maybe they were smoking the same weed? Who knows. Well, if AIM can so can BA. So why are they still bickering?
"suppresio veri, suggestio falsi" - suppress key facts, and suggest something which is untrue. Has the responsibility of misleading the public been transferred from Sylvia Lim to Pritam Singh?
Why did Pritam hide that WP tried, unsuccessfully, to limit the accountants’ terms of reference (scope of work)? Instead The court has ORDERED that the accountant carry out all the checks HBD/MND has set out. The rhetoric of Workers’ Party is about saying all the right things for your ears but what they do is another matter altogether.
MND Press release:
The Workers' Party tried, unsuccessfully, to limit the accountants’ terms of reference, to:
(a) Only the non-compliances identified by the Auditor-General’s Report (the “AGO Report”) of Feb 2015, and
(b) Only any improper past payments involving its former managing agent, FM Solutions & Services (“FMSS”) and FM Solutions and Integrated Services (“FMSI”).
The Court disagreed with AHTC, and said that:
(1) The Terms of Reference should include all non-compliances under Section 35(c) of the Town Councils Act which had been identified (i) by the AGO Report, and (ii) by AHPETC’s own auditors, in its subsequent audited financial statements for FY 13/14 and FY 14/15.
(2) The Terms of Reference should extend to examining whether any past payments made by the Town Council were improper and should therefore be recovered, and should not be limited to only transactions involving FMSS and FMSI.
The appeals court also set an Aug 31 deadline for the prospective accountants to submit a report on whether any past payments of the town council were improper.