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Punggol East accounts: Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council handed S$22.5m in cash to AHPETC, says DPM Teo

SINGAPORE — The Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council handed S$22.5 million in cash to Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) after the Workers’ Party won the 2013 Punggol East by-election, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean today (Sept 6). The sum includes sinking funds and project funds, among other things.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean holding up papers from the same set of accounts that the Workers' Party's Mr Low Thia kiang held up at last night's (Sept 5) wp rally. Photo: Raj Nadarajan

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean holding up papers from the same set of accounts that the Workers' Party's Mr Low Thia kiang held up at last night's (Sept 5) wp rally. Photo: Raj Nadarajan

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SINGAPORE — The Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council handed S$22.5 million in cash to Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) after the Workers’ Party won the 2013 Punggol East by-election, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean today (Sept 6). The sum includes sinking funds and project funds, among other things.

Mr Teo made these comments at Rivervale Plaza in Sengkang during a People’s Action Party (PAP) walkabout. He was present with the PAP’s candidate for Punggol East, Charles Chong. Mr Teo hit back at Workers’ Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang's rally speech last night. 

Responding to reporters on whether the Community Improvement Projects Committee Fund was made available to the WP and why the deficit was not made public, Mr Teo said Mr Low “very dramatically” showed only one page out of more than 20 pages in the accounts. “We should really look at the whole set of accounts,” said Mr Teo, who is also a PAP candidate for Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC.

Mr Low had charged that Punggol East’s accounts showed an accumulated deficit of more than S$280,000 when the WP took over. He even held up a copy of an income and expenditure statement of Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council, dated April 30, 2013.

Mr Teo added: "We were very careful to handover everything that was due to our residents here. These are our residents before, we wanted to do right by them."

Mr Teo said $22.5 million in cash was handed over to the WP-run town council and it was “fully accounted for” and had “no issues”. 

In 2013, Punggol East merged with Aljunied GRC and Hougang to form AHPETC. Prior to the merger, it was part of the PAP’s Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council.

“So we were very surprised that these issues had suddenly come up … The issue really at hand is this: After we handed over all these accounts — S$22.5 million in cash — the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council has never submitted an unqualified set of accounts,” said Mr Teo.

“So the real question is … I hope the cash is properly accounted for by them. So that’s really the question which they need to answer.” 

Mr Chong said the party will release the accounts of one of the pages, which states the surpluses and amount of money handed over to AHPETC at that time. “So you ask me where the money went, right? I think we can account for it … So my question to him is: Where’s the money that we handed him?”

In the morning, the WP’s Punggol East candidate Lee Li Lian spoke to media at Rivervale Plaza. She said Mr Low had raised the issue in the context of what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said about quality of candidates in this General Election.

Last month, Mr Chong said in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao that Punggol East had a surplus of S$1 million before the PAP handed it over to the WP. Following Mr Chong’s statement, Ms Lee said the party checked the accounts. However, the priority for the party at that time was to complete the audited accounts filed on Monday, she said.

“We felt that it was necessary to set the record straight in a Punggol East rally since it was Punggol East accounts that we were talking about,” she added.

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