The Review Team of the Ministry of National Development has recently declared that there is no loss or misuse of public funds in the PAP Town Council dealings with PAP-owned $2 IT company, Action Information Management Pte Ltd. In a 37 page report [Source], the MND Review Team also claimed that the residents’ interests have been protected and that the AIM did not make a profit from the transaction. Although the report published the exchange letters between the Workers’ Party-owned Aljunied Town Council and AIM to prove the termination of the service provision on 10 September was justified, there are still crucial evidence lacking to back the following statements by MND:
1) “AIM made a loss during the one-year sale and leaseback arrangement from the 2010 contract. For the subsequent extensions, AIM’s management fees essentially covered the costs of the headcount required to fulfill its role in support of the TCs. AIM Directors are not paid and it charged only a fee to recoup its operational costs.“
The MND did not reveal the annual report of AIM stating in absolute dollars the balance sheet or at least indicating the operating costs, net profit and number of headcounts. How much is the operational costs? What is the breakdown? How do you justify it is “competitive” or at a “market rate” when you only have 1 bid in the tender? So AIM made a loss in that one year in 2010, what about the period from 1991 to present day?
2) “The Review Team found no pecuniary or direct interest on the part of any of the TC members in AIM. There was also no indirect interest on the part of the TC members in the AIM contract; the TC members did not have a financial or commercial interest in the contract that AIM was awarded.”
As stated in its background, AIM was set up to only help PAP Town Councils, meaning they are a partisan company which openly discriminates against Town Councils of their political affiliations and that they place the PAP’s interests above the residents’ interests. How can a company of such discriminatory nature be awarded a non-partisan contract? If a company openly states it openly discriminates against a particular race, can the Town Council even allow such a company to participate in the tender in the first place? How can the Town Council allow a partisan player’s participation for a non-partisan contract?
3) No loss made?
From Page 17 to 19:
TCMS was sold for $140,000 to AIM on 1 Nov 2010
PAP Town councils paid up 1 Nov 2010 to 30 April 2013: $131,880+$22,100+$11,050 = $164,950
Loss made = $24,950…and counting because the same 2010 TCMS version has still not been changed today
Could the MND re-define “no loss”? Shouldn’t the profit or loss be determined only after the 2010 TCMS be fully phased out and when we don’t have to pay a single cents of “management cost” to AIM for reusing the old software we sold to them for $140,000?
Alex Tan
*The author is a former TRS editor and now blogs at WikiTemasek.org