Khaw, Sylvia in terse exchange

SINGAPORE — A terse exchange broke out in Parliament between National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan and Ms Sylvia Lim yesterday, after the Workers’ Party (WP) chairman suggested that the People’s Action Party (PAP) would risk compromising residents’ interests to trip up the Opposition.

Mr Khaw also turned the tables on the WP, pointing out that its town council appointed — and handed large contracts to — FM Solutions and Services (FMSS), a company run by a husband-and-wife team who are long-time WP supporters and were, in fact, the assentor and proposer for former Hougang Member of Parliament (MP) Yaw Shin Leong in the 2006 General Election. The company was set up just four days after the WP won Aljunied GRC and it was given a S$5.2 million-a-year managing agent contract without the town council calling a tender, Mr Khaw said.

In response, Ms Lim said the couple were not WP members and a special audit called by the opposition party had concluded that the contract was “value for money” for the residents.

Mr Khaw was wrapping up the debate on the Ministry of National Development review report on the controversial sale of a town council management computer software by the PAP town councils to a PAP-owned company. Towards the end of his speech, he zoomed in on Ms Lim’s claim: “This is self-righteous and — pardon me for saying so — arrogant. Many of us in this House have been serving Singaporeans for decades, long before she entered this House. Please, don’t behave as if you’re the only patriot in this House.”

Mr Khaw said he was “disappointed” with Ms Lim’s suggestion that the saga showed that the PAP “sees hurting people in Aljunied as ‘collateral damage in a bigger political game’”.

He added that the PAP would not be “so stupid” as to want to deliberately disrupt the lives of residents in Aljunied knowing that the WP would make a political issue out of it and cause residents to pile the blame on the PAP.

“What is the bigger political game? It is about winning back Aljunied, not about doing something petty that will just upset everybody and make us lose Aljunied permanently,” Mr Khaw said.

He said it was Ms Lim who had politicised the episode instead, questioning why she had chosen not to request the company, Action Information Management (AIM), to extend the software’s contract if she was concerned about the disruptions to town council services as a result of AIM exercising a termination clause.

“If there is anything suspicious about timing, it is really the timing of Ms Sylvia Lim raising the AIM issue. Why didn’t she raise the termination of (the software) back in 2011 when they took over, instead of thanking AIM for agreeing to the extensions that they had requested? Why, after thanking AIM, then wait 18 months till December 2012 when the MND revealed that the town council’s audit report had been delayed to raise this complaint against AIM?” Mr Khaw questioned.

He said: “I presume she will claim that they had been too busy setting up their own system to bother about raising this issue. Anyway, I must say it has been quite an effective move in distracting the public from the actual situation in the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council.”

He added: “Maybe pride or political motives got in the way, and residents’ interests became secondary.”

Mr Khaw cited how Potong Pasir MP Sitoh Yih Pin, in contrast, “worked quietly round-the-clock” and also asked the long-time general manager of his predecessor — veteran opposition politician Chiam See Tong — to stay on in order to minimise disruptions during the handover.

Ms Lim rose to speak immediately after Mr Khaw ended his round-up speech. “I have to take issue with his ascribing to me personal motives of pride and arrogance because I think nothing can be further from the truth,” she said.

“The reason why we raised this matter for public discussion and debate is because we want to improve things for the future. So I definitely do not accept his ascription of those motives to me personally.”

During the debate, Aljunied GRC MP Pritam Singh suggested that town councils should be blocked from transacting with companies that are owned by political parties in the wake of this saga. In response, Mr Khaw, who revealed that AIM was the only company owned by the PAP, said the prohibition should instead extend to firms owned by those affiliated in any way to political parties, should such a rule change come about.

In reiterating that his ministry had exercised the existing rules fairly across all town councils, Mr Khaw cited how Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council was not barred from appointing estate management company FMSS, which was set up by Mr Danny Loh and Ms How Weng Fan.

He also noted that managing agent rates in Aljunied were 20-per-cent higher under FMSS than it was when the PAP ran the town council.

Mr Khaw said: “To be precise, when it was under (former Foreign Minister) George Yeo, the rate was S$6.51 per unit per month. Now, it is S$7.87 in FY2011 — the first contract — and then it went up to S$8.04 per unit per month in FY2012. In fact, the FMSS rate is more than 50-per-cent higher than the rate for Tampines Town Council which is of similar size.”