WP still trying to mislead and run away from answering questions: PAP

SINGAPORE — A day after the Workers’ Party (WP) spoke about the financial management issues at Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC), two People’s Action Party (PAP) ministers attacked the opposition party for continuing to “mislead” and “run away” from answering important questions.

National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan, whose ministry oversees town councils, charged that after four years, the main problems plaguing AHPETC remain largely unresolved. “Yes, this time round they submitted (their financial reports) on time, but it remains qualified,” Mr Khaw, who helms Sembawang GRC, said before his walkabout at Woodlands today (Sept 3).

If a company’s accounts are deemed qualified by its auditors, it means they doubt that the picture of the firm’s activities presented is accurate and fair, he explained. The Ministry of National Development prepared a fact sheet with a point-by-point rebuttal to WP and AHPETC chairman Sylvia Lim who spoke on the four myths about the topic.

Earlier, his Cabinet colleague, Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam accused the WP of trying to “run away from the issues yet again”. “The High Court said Ms Lim misled Parliament, was dishonest. She has not responded to that,” he said at a press conference to announce his team’s manifesto at Nee Soon GRC.

“Another observation the High Court made was that if this kind of conduct had taken place in a public company, it probably would attract criminal sanctions. So you can deal like this with people’s money, you can mislead Parliament, mislead Singaporeans, refuse to answer any questions, hold back information from your own auditors and they qualify your accounts because they say you refuse to give information,” he said.

The ministers were responding to the speeches made by WP leaders at their rally yesterday, where Mr Low Thia Khiang, Ms Lim and Mr Png Eng Huat explained the issue. They said the accounts have been settled and the town council will have a surplus of S$1.7 million once the government grant — currently withheld — comes in.

Mr Low, who spoke in Teochew and said he had tolerated the PAP for very long on this topic, took his opponents to task for exaggerating an issue for the past two years that has not resulted in any criminal charges. “If we had committed any criminal offence, we would have been thrown in jail,” he said.

To that, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s comeback today was: “To say I haven’t gone to jail therefore I have done a good job, if that’s your standard of doing a good job, that’s very sad.”

Both Mr Khaw and Mr Shanmugam raised similar points, with the former adding that the situation at AHPETC “seems to be worse than we thought”. “Recently, we just found out that the shareholders of FMSS, their managing agent, were paid millions of dollars of all kinds of fees ... And then we found out … that for several months, they have been quietly trying to claw back S$450,000 from FMSS. They have also suspended paying their fees to FMSS, resulting in FMSS having to issue a lawyer’s letter to the town council,” Mr Khaw noted.

“So, if they have been paying in accordance with what was in the contract, then why are they suspending payment and why are they trying to claw back the money? They never explained all these important questions at the rally yesterday.”

Mr Shanmugam also took issue with the WP for choosing to talk about the AHPETC at a rally where no follow-up questions could be asked.

Referring to WP’s candidate Pritam Singh, he said: “In Parliament, Mr Singh said he would not answer questions because anything he says can be questioned. So they run away from questions in Parliament, they run away from questions from the media and they take a rally stage and say all sorts of things.”

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, we misquoted Mr Khaw saying that the figure AHPETC has been trying to claw back was $45,000. This is incorrect. It should be $450,000. We are sorry for the error.