SINGAPORE — Ms Sylvia Lim, chairman of the Workers’ Party-run town council, has urged Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong “not to confuse or alarm the public by speculating” on whether the service and conservancy charges arrears situation in her town council has worsened or whether it is facing “bigger problems”, as the minister wrote in an op-ed published in The Straits Times today (Dec 10).

In his article titled “WP town council and the sound of silence”, Mr Wong also expressed his “queasiness” about whether Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) and the WP are deliberately trying to avoid answering questions about the town council’s financial management and situation.

Responding in a press statement this evening, Ms Lim, who is WP chairman, said the public can expect that the People’s Action Party will be the first to hold WP to account.

The Government also has “all the investigative arms within its disposal to hold WP to account on any matter under the sun”, she said.

AHPETC has been facilitating the special audit by the Auditor-General’s Office and will have to submit its annual accounts for auditing by firms approved by the National Development Ministry, Ms Lim added. “We trust that the government will duly make public the AGO audit findings, the AHPETC’s annual audited accounts will also have to (be) made public when (the) audit is competed. I believe that once the audited information is available, more productive discussions can be entered into.”

In his article, Mr Wong noted that the S&CC arrears in AHPETC had “worsened sharply” in April last year, with 30 per cent of residents and 50 per cent of commercial units owing the fees for at least three months — this was more than 10 times the national average for HDB residents and more than 34 times for commercial units. After the sudden spike, the town council did not submit its arrears reports, he noted, adding that “something is seriously wrong”.

Although the Ministry of National Development has queried AHPETC several times, “all we have got from AHPETC are prevarications, non-answers, and sweeping assurances that things will be all right,” said Mr Wong,

The minister also took issue with Ms Lim’s explanation that the delay in submitting the arrears figures was because of an audit by the AGO. Citing how the town council had stopped submitting its reports 10 months before the AGO audit began, Mr Wong asked: “Anyway, why should an audit prevent Ms Lim from immediately investigating the figures, establishing the facts, and informing the public?”

The issue, he added, was not just the S&CC arrears, “but the governance and supervision of the town council, and what the WP MPs are doing (or not) to resolve the matter”.

Noting that AHPETC collects S$3 million in S&CC each month, Mr Wong said residents and shopkeepers deserve to know that their money is being properly managed and spent by the town council.