Aljunied Overpaid $6.4m, but PAP Town Councils Overpaid $41m?

Aljunied paid higher fees to managing agent

According to the Straits Times news report “Parliament: PAP calls on WP to examine accounts of its managing agent; WP says higher fees was partly due to companies refusing its business” (Feb 13) – “WP-run Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) has paid the company $1.6 million more per year than other town councils over the last four years.

WP chairman Sylvia Lim said that other large managing agents could have lower costs than FMSS due to economies of scale, and that those companies have lowered their fees further over the past few years.

While FMSS did charge AHPETC fees “on the high-end of the scale,” she said that the WP exhaustively debated the fee structure and came to a conclusion that this was acceptable as FMSS did not have the economies of scale that the other managing agent companies had, and that it was also providing additional services such as an IT system.”

As a resident of Aljunied – I can only describe my feelings as one of “anger” as I read all that was going on in Parliament.

2nd attempt to “accuse” Aljunied?

This is not the first time that my town council has been unfairly maligned and accused of paying “higher” fees to the managing agent.

Peanuts compared to AIM’s $41m?

The $6.4 million that Aljunied town council is accused of overpaying in the last four years is peanuts compared to what was spent by the 14 town councils on the town council management software (which was sold to AIM for peanuts of just over $100,000) – of about $24 million before its sale to AIM and about another $17 under the new tender awarded in April 2013?

So, did the PAP town councils overpay about $41 million for its software system?

Yet another case of “pot calling the kettle black”?

Misleading comparison?

The statistics on the managing agent’s rate per unit is misleading as it only compares the rates in 2014.

I was alerted by Ms Sylvia Lim’s remarks “those companies have lowered their fees further over the past few years” – and discovered after researching online that for example, Holland Bukit Timah’s  (HBTTC) managing fee per unit was $7.53 in 2011, which was then about 46 per cent higher than Tampines town council’s (TTC) – when Aljunied was first accused of “overpaying” by citing only TTC as the basis of comparison with Aljunied.