MND, WP dispute managing agent rates

SINGAPORE — The managing agent (MA) rates of the town council run by the Workers’ Party (WP) — which were cited by National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Monday — were disputed yesterday by WP Chairman Sylvia Lim, who said the rates should be lower.

Her statement was met with a swift response from the Ministry of National Development (MND), which pointed out that her figures provided an “incomplete picture”, as they only covered residential units and excluded the commercial units.

An MND spokesperson said: “MND computes the managing agent rate per unit for each town council, by dividing the MA tender rate that the town council submits to HDB by the total number of residential and commercial units the town council manages and covered by the MA contract ... This is the method MND has always used, and applied consistently to all town councils.”

The rates in question were charged by the then-Aljunied-Hougang Town Council, which has since expanded to include the Punggol East constituency.

Ms Lim, who also chairs the town council, said the fees charged by its agent, FM Solutions and Services (FMSS), were equivalent to those charged by CPG Facilities Management, which managed the town council when it was under the People’s Action Party. FMSS fees included the staff cost at Hougang SMC Town Council, she said.

Also, the fees charged by FMSS included services that were not provided for during the PAP’s administration, such as IT administration and maintenance cost.

She added that the previous PAP administration managed three offices, but FMSS was contracted to run five offices and an additional collection point in Serangoon for service and conservancy charges.

On Monday, during a debate in Parliament over MND’s review of the controversial sale of the PAP town council management software system to PAP-owned company Action Information Management, Mr Khaw had said the FMSS’s MA rate was 20 per cent more than the rate under the PAP — from S$6.51 per unit per month in 2011 to S$7.87 and then to S$8.04 last year.

In comparison, the Tampines Town Council rate was S$4.99 last year, he said. According to the WP’s calculations, its managing agent rate per residential unit for 2012 was S$7.01 — 4.16 per cent more than CPG’s rate of S$6.73 when the town council was run by the PAP.

Ms Lim said the Tampines Town Council rate was chosen for comparison as an “outlier”.

“We do not wish to speculate why a MA would tender in 2012 a lower rate for MA services in 2010, given the rising costs,” she said.

According to the MND, the then-Aljunied-Hougang Town Council and Tampines Town Council managed a similar number of residential and commercial units last year.

Aljunied-Hougang Town Council managed 57,899 units, while Tampines Town Council managed 57,292 units.

In the ministry’s response, the MND spokesperson said that EM Services was the managing agent for Tampines Town Council in FY2010 and FY2011.

“In FY2010, it charged a monthly rate of S$5.14 per property unit. In FY2011, it charged a monthly rate of S$5.15 per property unit. In August 2012, an open tender was called, and CPG Facilities Management won the bid to provide MA services to Tampines Town Council, at a monthly rate of S$4.99 per property unit.”

In comparison, FMSS was awarded the MA contract in FY2011 by waiver of competition and in FY 2012 for three years by tender where it was the only bidder, the MND spokesperson noted.

In her statement, Ms Lim said that the town council awarded a one-year contract to FMSS, which is run by WP supporters, without calling for a tender because of the “urgency and public interest” from the handover after the General Election in May 2011. Potong Pasir Town Council, which the PAP took over from the Singapore People’s Party, did the same, she added.

And while FMSS was the only bidder for a three-year S$16.8 million contract in a tender called last year, the town council had commissioned a special audit which noted the steps taken “in due diligence to ensure value for money”.