Workers' Party is the fine example of a double standard party which makes them insincere and hypocrites.
They want to hold others to transparency. Yet they are themselves anything but transparent.
Recall how Sylvia Lim told their own auditors who requested for
information, that they did not have the right to know. And recall too
how she said they would use their full resources to mount a resistance against the appointment of independent accountants to look into their books to recover lost money. Why the resistance?
High court judge Quentin Loh even used the Latin phrase "suppressio
veri suggestio falsi" (suppressing the truth to give the impression of
something that is not true) to describe Sylvia Lim. Essentially he
called her as a liar.
What does lawyer Dennis Tan have to day to all these? Does he not think that WP must themselves first be transparent?
Then they demanded for a COI to be convened for the Hep C cluster at
SGH but refused to carry out a forensic audit of their own messy
accounts to make things right.
Such is the state of the party.
Photo credit: Fabrications About The PAP
David
Marshall, Singapore's first Chief Minister from 1955 to 1956 founded
the Workers' Party in 1957. Four years later in 1963, he quit the party
after being played out by some party members and subsequently, when
invited by J B Jeyaretnam to rejoin the party, he refused.
Democracy, to David Marshall, means being a loyal opposition. It means not allowing mistakes to be swept under the carpet And that surely must include your own mistakes. It means doing things to improve 'the quality of life of the people'.
May we add also that a loyal opposition does not play politics.
David Marshall held his Meet-The-People sessions within a building, not in open spaces.
David Marshall would surely be ashamed if he knew that the party he
founded and quit is, some 58 years later, holding their Meet-the-people
sessions in open void decks when he could hold his in a room at a time
when the party was in its infancy, small and definitely not as rich as
it is today.
Once upon a time when Singaporeans were unaware
of the fact that WP could actually rent the void deck space at
concessionary rates similar to that which apply to charitable
organisations, when Singaporeans mistakenly thought that PAP were
allowed to use RCs for their MPS, WP was able to play their 'victim'
card to their benefit.
Not anymore.
“As
the Court of Appeal pointed out,” says Mr Shanmugam, “they have no
system of identifying the S&CC — who has paid and who hasn’t paid —
as basic as that. It’s shambolic and it’s a serious state of affairs.”
When asked what he would like the outcome of the whole AHPETC saga to
be, he says, “Tell the truth. Where did the money go? How much? What was
the money spent on? Don’t play a game of smoke and mirrors. Just come clean and apologise for what has happened.
“Don’t pretend that nothing has happened. And make good the losses.
People's money has been lost through poor conduct. Yes, it is
politically damaging to admit it, but better to admit it, put the money
back, take the necessary action, disclose all of the data, face the
consequences … that is the way to do things.”
http://six-six.com/article/ahpetc-shortfall-could-affect-residents-pockets-shanmugam
Town Council Management Report (TCMR) for period April 2014 to March 2015.
AHPETC continues to score RED for corporate governance (for the 3rd
consecutive year) and S&CC arrears (for the 4th consecutive year).
In May this year, Sylvia Lim told the court that AHPETC had enough funds to last until JUNE 2015.
The town council also had a dispute with FMSS over $3.5million owed to
FMSS which, just before the general election, was withheld.
The judgement of the Appeal Court on the appointment of independent
accountant to the WP-run town council also required the town council to
make all necessary Sinking Fund transfers within 3 months from 27
November 2015.
It remains to be seen whether the town council
will be able to meet all of its obligations to residents in estate
management and cleanliness in this current financial year.
http://app.mnd.gov.sg/Newsroom/NewsPage.aspx?ID=6994&category=Press+Release&year=2015&RA1&RA2&RA3
Update on MND's appeal to appoint independent accountants for Aljunied-Hougang Town Council.
The court has turned down the appeal.
However the court has ordered the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council to appoint the accountants directly.
Among the things the accountants are required to do is to submit
monthly progress reports to the HDB. They will also have the power to
investigate whether past payments made by the town council were
improper.
The court also ordered the town council to make all sinking fund transfers within 3 months from today.
In arriving at its decision, the Court of Appeal had found that AHPETC had breached the Town Councils Act by failing to “‘do all things necessary to ensure’ that (a) its payments are correctly made and properly authorised; and (b) adequate control is maintained over its assets and expenditure”.The Court noted, in particular, the following:
(a) There “were various lapses in internal controls, which exposed AHPETC to the risk of the loss of money or valuables, commitment to expenditure without requisite approval as well as wrong payment for goods and services”.
(b) There was “inadequate oversight of related party transactions” by AHPETC and “key officers of AHPETC also acted in clear conflict of interests when they approved payment to FMSS (a company in which they were themselves the directors and shareholders)”.
(c) It did not appear that AHPETC “had (or has as yet) seriously considered whether and, if so, what steps need to be taken to recover possible sums due from wrong payments”.
(d) AHPETC “did not have a system to monitor the scale of its conservancy and service arrears accurately” and “did not have a proper system to ensure that documents were properly accounted for and safeguarded, and its accounting systems and procedures were inadequate”.
http://app.mnd.gov.sg/Portals/0/Joint%20MND%20and%20HDB%20statement_Annex%20A_27112015.pdf
N
ot building a proper place to hold MPS is not about 'prudence' but about keeping up the illusion that it is hard to be 'opposition' in Singapore. It is helpful to scoring political points by giving the false impression that both WP and residents who voted for them are being 'bullied'. But the truth is that rental for the use of void deck space is at concessionary rates similar to what charity organisations have to pay and the residents are being 'punished' by WP by being exposed to the elements during MPS just so that WP can continue to play victim to a 'political system' that is of their own invention.
Photo: Fabrications About The PAP
For your information, PAP MPs use the premises of their own PCF kindergartens or their own branch offices built with party's funds.
