Integrity, trust are the issues, not technical rules, Low told

Yesterday, Mr Heng Swee Keat pressed Workers’ Party chief Low Thia Khiang on whether the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) had overpaid its managing agent. Here are excerpts of the exchange:

Mr Heng: I think the honourable member has not answered the very straightforward question ... we saw big differences in the MA (managing agent) rates. As elected Members of Parliament running the town council, is it not in your instinct to say how this happened? Are our residents getting a good deal? Why is this so? How much money are they making?

... Minister Shanmugam said he estimated the town council had paid at least S$1.6 million more than it should every year for the last four years. So if you are serving your residents well, should you not jump at that figure and say, “I must do something about this; I must get to the bottom of this,” rather than say, “Well, this was an open contract. It was only one bid and that was it?”

Also, you did not answer my question ... You said you had experience, there were professionals ... Why did you not just simply hire them as employees and continue to run (the town council)? You would know the cost with great clarity ... But you’ve not explained why, why such a convoluted structure (was there) and what you’ve done (to) prevent the conflict of interest. You’re not prepared to ask how much money FMSS (FM Solutions and Services) has made, you’re not prepared to look into how much the town council overpaid and was this money lost through the front door.

Mr Low: Madam, I wish to reiterate again the town council paid the managing agent based on the contract sum agreed upon via public tender. Why we did not decide to manage ourselves was because it was very much a larger GRC ... (In) Hougang SMC, there were only about 20-odd staff and we know we would need about 100 staff to manage (the AHPETC) ... We were very concerned about taking over a much larger GRC and (if) we manage (the town council) ourselves, there would probably be a lot of other things that (we need to) look into, so we thought it would be better if the old (Hougang) town council staff ... form a company ... to manage the town council.

Mr Heng: May I ask the honourable member whether it is perfectly all right to overpay your managing agent? Is that your conclusion?

Mr Low: …This was a public tender... We have done due diligence to check around (regarding the rates).

Mr Heng: I find this discussion puzzling because, in fact, Sylvia Lim (the AHPETC chairman) had told us just a few moments ago that in terms of payment of staff, you’ve done a benchmarking. And I assume you did that to ensure that you don’t overpay.

Now that you’ve seen all the figures, it is a very clear instance that you’ve overpaid. And the simple question is what are you going to do about it? May I suggest ... we do not prolong this where you just assert (and) inform there was a tender and this was the outcome and all that?

As I said in my speech repeatedly, it is not about form. It is not about technical (rules). It is about integrity, it is about trust, it is about how we wholeheartedly do our very best to serve the people who have elected us, to serve Singaporeans who have elected us.

We should not just go behind the facade that all the technical rules have been obeyed, this was the outcome and accept that.