I just wish that instead of stockpiling those funds and investing them, the town councils should actively spend the money to help the needy. Why do they want to do with piles of cash sitting around doing nothing anyway?

With all these allowed gamblings going on in every TCs and garment link state corps going on for so many years behind the back of the suffering taxpayers, what is wrong with our garment? turning our nation into a gambling dens with the taxpayers monies? is this the correct way to govern the country? these are our hard earned monies and why are you doing this thing to us citizens? Besides, most of us are already in so bad shape, coping and struggling to get decent food on our tables for our families and paying your never ending bills after bills, and yet you people have the guts dumping away billions of our trapped monies in your hands to gambled off. So much of your sweet talks about looking after the people of singapore, so disgraceful.

Ban ALL TCs from IR Casino!

It was an honest mistake. What to do? Let’s move on.

MP Halimah Yacob said it herself: there will not be enough funds in order to take care of their [TC] needs

It is imperative for the Town Councils to disclose WHO made the decisions to invest the sinking funds into the HIGH RISK products. Did they read the warnings on the prospectus?

WHO advised the Town Councils to do so? Surely public funds do not fit the profile of such products.

Are the Town Councils’ decision-makers and advisors qualified in their roles to manage portfolios of such large amounts? Did the MPs stamp their approvals on the decisions made?

If yes, I’m even more baffled that Marine Parade Town Council reportedly lost about one million dollars. Isn’t SM Goh Chok Tong the CHAIRMAN OF MAS?

Now that the skeleton from the PAP Town Councils bad investment was disclosed
it is appropriate that ALL the PAP Town Councils should invite Mr. Low Thia Khiang
to teach them a thing or two about investing public monies. He is able to earn a
return averaging a mighty six percent a year in the last three years! What a
commendable job! This is double that of the PAP TCs which averaged 3% return
even getting expert advise and recommendations from financial experts.

What a laugh the joke about the Chairman of Pasir Ris-Punggol personally lost
$50,000 in the Minibonds. Is he a gambler taking such risk?(C/R LKY)

Oh my gawd, are you (7) Red_dot suggesting that our Alternative leaders have 1 upped them in this specific particular aspect?

oh goodness gracious me…. did the MSM report this clearly? If not how people know? true or not huh?

Wow lau! accumulate so much $ still increase S&C charges. This is greed man…Look if we did not probe further, nobody is going to be transparent about it. So check and balance still valid no matter what sweet talk they told singaporean.

I am eager to know if they invest with eyes open. See, so smart (A team) still con by those western creativity.

There is something fundametally wrong with the role of the TC.
That role of losing taxpayers $$$ has already been taken, why are fighting for that role?
So when the TC say, “we will give you some rebates to your S&C for this month”
It actually means, “we have made too much $$ from you, not taking so much this month.”
Really dunno why the TC needs soooo much $$$ ?? So much that it has to be invested in some high risk products?

maybe they are having an inter-TCs competition to see which TC can pile up or suck the most $$$ out from the citizens would enjoy certain level of incentives like some % as bonus from of the total sum to the person in charge, could be true or else why the TCs keep increasing the SC&C fee every now and then. And ultimately when all these surplus funds are full enough, then they just transfer them back to who we all know, but then too late, it got all screwed up badly now.

Is this a misuse of the funds?

The money is supposed to be used for maintaining the estates, but instead of being used as such, it was put into risky investments!!

Is this legal?

guys, let me tell you one thing. let’s put things into perspective, and move on. we will all be better for it. =)

All citizens had been kept away from the gambling secrets of the TC. Well NOTED bizzare Leegal gambling is in Singapore POOLs.

Our citizens pours alot of money in Singapore pools not realising that there is a huge pool of money. Who is accounting that, are they re-investing. Never once that the TC did charity work. They are limited to their RC & CCCCs only.

We need brave young man to question them. Govt shud fear People and not vice versa.

such a disappointed thing..
do we going to trust this gov again..??

how much money we going to lose..??
and TAT IS OUR MONEY…hai….

HATES HATES..

Ya their job is to maintain the estate…our SM still got the cheek to ask to check hougang TC under the opposition…..giving himself a big slap on the face!!!

I guess all along nobody knows they are allow to invest our $$, if they have so much reserve in their TC, y dun thye give more rebate to us?? y they increase SC & Cs charges?? Y they sue those ppl that only 2mths outstanding ??

We cun trust them anymore!!! Vote them out!!!

I would like to know whether Service and Conservancy fees in these estates have gone up.

Also, while a savvy investor can say he bought structured products with his eyes wide open, can the managers of these estates say with their hand on their hearts their residents knew where their S & C charges were going?

While making investments in stocks, shares, bonds and structured products are part of the mandate of GLCs and investment companies, can this really be said to be part of the TC mandate?

Also, while corporate governance and accounting checks exist in companies, do such checks exist in TCs?

think pap is in deep trouble this time…. unless most singaporeans are dumb… i suspect they are dumb….

Holly shit !!

AS RESIDENTS of Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council reacted to
the news on Monday that their constituency’s funds were exposed
to Lehman-linked structured products, its chairman Dr Teo Ho Pin had this message for them: Be thankful that the funds have grown under the
Town Council’s watch.
Told of the rumblings on the ground about the high-risk investment,
Dr Teo said the potential $8-million loss should be viewed
in the context of the $24 million in investments generated over the
past six years. If the Town Council had invested all its funds in lowrisk
investments, it would have earned only $5 million, he said.

“They (residents) should thank the Town Council for
working hard to come up with a diversified portfolio to generate
income so that residents do not have to fork out more money.”

http://www.todayonline.com/pdf_open.asp?id=1911HNR005

F- you and thanks for that.

Teo Ho Pin,
I thank you that you’re not my MP. I wish that I can vote you in the upcoming election. I thank Lee Hsien Loong even more for losing only 1 million not 8. Btw since the Town Councils are such excellent money managers, and that 16 million is neglible loss, I’ll stop paying conservancy charges from now on. After all, what is $50 to you. Not worth spending money sending the lawyer after me right? You can easy cover my portion with the 24 million. :-)

Sorry is such a diff..icult word for the elite. Complete lack of graciousness. So far the few speeches after losing elections is about no more sharksfin soup and withdrawing PCF services (talk about polticising a non-political organization. Cycling anyone?)

I will stop paying my conservancy charges – if they want to send me lawyer letter and ask me to go to court – I will ask for frial and get the MP to testify on how he lost our money in the investment.

Now MAS declares that it is also exposed to the toxic investments but only less than 0.05% meaning $10 Million? they won’t reveal how?

who the hell is this woman Grace Fu? Is she the new empress dowager? look at her “stone face” when she answered Ms Olsen..and that Dr Teo….just apologise and shut up! and where the hell is the resident clown Mr. Lim of Holland-Bukit Panjang? we need your cpf to repair our longkang! speak up NOW!

wake up lor singaporean … why let this greedy garvern take away all ur money for their own agenda while putting u and the rest of us strugglling to meet our daily need? … something must be done to address all the injustice done over the past 40 years or so …

4 comments:

1. If our TCs, headed by world class MPs and Ministers, with all th financial advisers at their beck and call can make the honest mistake of investing in these minibonds, how can ordinary retail investors be expected to have gone in with their eyes wide open.
2. $16m loss is peanuts? Sure, when you consider the billions lost by GIC and Temasek. in Citi, ML, UBS, ABC….etc
3. Only 3% return on their investments….come on!! in the past 3 years, with proper stock pick, you can get more than that from the stock market just on divident yields.
4. The $16m loss is just the realised losses……what about the mark to market loss/gain?

They said that they have stringent controls over such investments and suppose did it with the EYES WIDE OPENED – similar to the guy who walked into the tigers enclosure! So presumably they know the very high risk nature of the toxic Minibond’s with relative small returns but they did it anyway! It is public money – does it sound like as if I care?

They also said that this would not hurt the operations of the TC, after all they still have a billion $ of our money in their hands. If they loss the billion as well with some bloody so called “honest mistakes”, that’s no problem too, you just need to be prepared to pay more TC charges — probably 21.5% more like the electricity, no?

Is this what is the case?

Its TIME! Brudders and Sisters!

What else can we do?

18) ha ha on November 19th, 2008 2.22 am think pap is in deep trouble this time…. unless most singaporeans are dumb… i suspect they are dumb….

———————————————

you may be surprised. I am not.
last time WP rally was shock and awesome.
and then what happened? strange? no idea.

coz u all no ball de, all scared to vote against the mighty money machine

but opps … my area is sure walk over … no need to vote so no choice lor

the problem is that … only a very small portion of singaporean dare to change, although there are more than 50% want to change …

Sgcynic, if you stop paying conservancy charges, u sure kena lawyer letter

but if all of us stop paying conservancy charges, then its a different story le

We only have ourselves to be blamed as we have voted them in firstly and secondly we overtrust them. If you want to blame someone first ask yourselves – are you the one that votet hem in and thus have given them this mandate to govern us. There is nothing much to say from now till the next GE.

There is apparently no proper checks and balances in the high places so much so that they can do what they like and fancy.

I was shocked when PM himself can reiterate that he prefers a one-party monopoly govt. It goes to show that he wants absolute power for his party and even though this may not be healthy for Singapore he will not care a hoot about it. It is for his party first, country second. I almost cry when I read that and it goes to show that absolute power may eventually ruin a country. We are facing that time in history now.

IS TC a non-profit organisation ?

Why is there a need to invest such sums of money in an investment tool IF IT IS A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION?

Can any MP clarify what exactly is the meaning of Non-Profit?

Our leaders are paid CEO level of salary right? correct me if wrong.
The reasons for this was mentioned before by the politicians.

CEO who make decisions to invest also have good and valid reasons.
But when CEOs investment goes bad, they can be sacked EVEN when the reasons for investment is good.

So, get my point?

hallooooo??? any body home ????? I also wan leh. Shiok shiok ah.

34) Gilbert Goh Keow Wah on November 19th, 2008 10.03 am
was shocked when PM himself can reiterate that he prefers a one-party monopoly govt. It goes to show that he wants absolute power for his party and even though this may not be healthy for Singapore he will not care a hoot about it. It is for his party first, country second. I almost cry when I read that and it goes to show that absolute power may eventually ruin a country. We are facing that time in history now.

Gilby, it is not surprising nor shocking to know what these MIW and their polical movements and strategies, all these are well planned and organized years ago. The reason behind this last minute decision 1party thingy have something to do with the series of what’ve been happening on the ground level that is already badly affecting their image, fearing that they are starting lose ground, they are now turning to forced self election, so no matter what you people protest, you have no other choice but to obey me now, get it?

[...] there are more losses but not announce as they focus only on Lehman minibond…. Blogger Reaction Bloggers reaction to town councils’ losses : The Online Citizen – a community of singaporeans Anymore losses other than minibond that TC got no balls to admit? Town councils, anymore skeletons [...]

To all my fellow Singaporeans who often remarked in times of trouble;
“What to do?”, “There is nothing we can do”, “How to change things around?”, “Who else can we depend on?”, “Let’s resign to ourselves” etc, etc, etc……….I have this to say.

We all make mistakes and this time round we made the BIGGEST mistake for believing in the PAPgovt and their promises which keep falling by the wayside, one by one, yet dare not look us in the eye and acknowledge their mistake.

People make mistakes. Honest people own up to the mistakes they made. Dishonest people not only tries to hide their mistakes but scold others and blame them for the mistakes.

We therefore have to acknowledge our mistake – for voting this PAP govt. We therefore have to own up to our mistake and do the right thing. We should not blame anyone else. We must do the right thing the next time the opportunity comes by. Kick these people out for good.

As our elite said, the two party system will not work. They have already declared that they will have to think of how to fix them. With too many opposition around it becomes a very difficult task. We might have to have another operation cold storage. Also accountability and transparency becomes a reality instead of of such declaring “tale our word for it” when every action is questioned and scrutinised. Anyway what surprises me people are more concerned about the investments but do not seem to mind that all of us have been grossly overcharged and have been made to thank for they “rebates”. Ain’t we a bunch of dumb-asses. And we still believe all that they say.

the problem here is too many mistakes had already been discovered and god knows how many more yet to surface, and yet those in charge can still be so arrogance and spit right through our face like “so what the fcuk can you do to us?”

I am deeply shocked on the pot shots taken sp freely at town councils by ‘nuts’ who know nothing about running a town council nor fund management nor its modus operandi……
Easy said than done!!! What about taking shots at private investors now running to the govt. for help! This min-bonds saga and structured investments are good, great investment for all, individuals, corporate and for the matter for town councils who have the utmost responsibility to ‘grow’ funds for many of the projects undertaken yearly.
The ‘Apples” jus gone bad or rotten amongst many in the basket…nobody can be blamed but requires immediate remedy to save other ‘apples’…an hard earmed experience I should say…. I am sure these town councils have great ’sinking’ funds and bouncing back is of no issue at all!!!!
STOP BICKERING….this site has become famous for that for almost, sorry. for everything!!!

V S RAAJ,

How about contributing your money towards making up for those losses suffered by the various town councils? You’ll be honoured for sure, by PAP only.

The issue here is one of accountability. Only unthinking Singaporeans couldn’t be bothered by these losses, unless, of course, you’re in PAP!

By the way, this is a sombre reflection on the whole system of PAP governance.

To post #42)

Why do we not see pot shots being taken at the Opp TCs by the ‘nuts’ here? There must be a reason right?

Does our Opp TCs know something about running a town council that our dear elites in govt don’t? If it is that difficult then why have they not lost $12m like our dear elites have?

The PAP like to sit on their moral high horses. Imagine if it was Potong Pasir or even Hougang TC that screwed up in their investments – the PAP would go after them hammer and tongs.

You will see Wong Kan Seng’s face peeking out at you in the Dire Straits Times lambasting Chiam See Tong and/or Low Thia Khiang. You will see big schlong Lee coming out and making his sagacious comments. You will hear about Goh Chok Tong on TV exhorting the public to go on a witch-hunt for these buggers who screwed up their town council accounts.

Now that the boot’s on the other foot, you can be sure, the PAP and its happy lapdogs i.e. the state media, will just sweep everything under the rug and pretend nothing happened.

Maybe we should organise a HLP excursion where effigies of screwed PAP leaders are burnt. I think it’s allowed under the law, and see whether the Dire Straits Times will pick up on that story.

Sack those who make the investments (not the MPs) but those who suggest it. these group of people must have been well buttered by the bankers or the investment agents into buying these products. Fine wine and dine and maybe corruption. there should investigation into this issue and the basis behind the investment in unsecured bonds or securities.

Remember a news few weeks back where a former treasurer embezzled money from the branch. these are the people that needs to be investigated. Surely for the bonds issue, sure got some things that was not declared or reveal.

It plain and simple ‘Criminal Breach Of Trust’. Where is Walter Woon?

maybe we should first ask who are these people who are responsible for the TC investment strategy. How qualified are they?

Some PIGS are more equal than others.

I think the gahmen is always saying that they are still looking for more good people to join them. Maybe there aren’t many good people in the team. That explains the lapses and poor decision-making now and then. Let’s be patient.

I wonder, why they haven’t been fair to redistribute amounts to Hougang and Potong Pasir.
Oh wait, ‘fairness’ comes with a twist here in SG.

Once We Were Eagles

Once there was a place where eagles soared and flew free. They went wherever they wanted to. They ate whatever they wanted to. They flew and soared as high as they wanted to.

One day, a man dressed in white (MIW) came along and spoke to the eagles:

He said:
“Oh eagles, why do you fly here and there? There is another world out there and if we work together we can conquer it and call it our home. Imagine the vast space you could fly in and the huge varieties of food you can eat to your hearts content. Come down and listen to me. I will show you the way to paradise on earth“.

And so the eagles, being naïve more than anything else, believed the MIW because they had never heard any man speak so sweetly before.

That day, the eagles flew down from the sky to listen to the MIW.

Soon, they were listening to his stories. To his promises of a paradise beyond imagination. A paradise where one could only dream of.

While the MIW continued talking with his sweet and tender words, the gathering of eagles did not realised that the henchmen of the MIW were closing the surrounding areas where they stood to listen.

Day after day, the MIW told his stories and as the days went by, he managed to convince the eagles that they are in actual fact, peacocks. That they were they most beautiful creatures alive on the face of the earth.

The eagles eventually came to believe that they were peacocks and the more they believed, the more proud they became.

Other birds that flew by and noticed how proud these ‘peacocks’ were, tried to tell them that they are eagles but the ‘peacocks’ would have none of such nonsense. They believed they are peacocks and no one could convince them otherwise.

Many years passed and the older generation of eagles had since passed on. The new generation continue to believe they are the prettiest peacocks on the face of the earth. The theological indoctrination of the MIW became the law that governs every aspects of their lives.

And so the story goes. The ending to the story has yet to be written. Will it be a happy ending? Will it be a sad and tragic ending?

Does it matter if we continue speculating? Do you get it?

The ending is to be written by you and me. We have forgotten that we could fly. We have the freedom to fly, to soar, to land, to seek our own destiny. Why have we become so afraid to fly?

Because we still think we are peacocks.

You believe?

To #52

Not sure if we are still peacocks but for sure we are cocks for taking all these crap shoved to us…

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

I think we need to submit a ban to TC from taking Singapore Money to gamble like that before the IR start their casino business in SIngapore.

Who sold the structured investment products to the TCs and were there personal interests involved?