Dhevarajan Devadas
After reading Dr Teo Ho Pin’s second forum page letter, I can only conclude that he is unable to understand what Singaporeans are demanding from him. Dr Teo, we do not want you to waste time “exploring” ways of how to keep residents informed of the town councils’ finances. We want you to inform us right now about what the town councils have spent our money on.
We do not need stock replies and interviews from you reassuring us. We want to know the exact details of your investments. And don’t you dare keep referring us to the annual reports as if they contain the information we want. As shown in the analysis by TOC, these reports lack any details about specific investments by the town councils.
It is already outrageous that you have invested our money in such high-risk investments without informing us. Now you conduct this ‘wayang’ about being on top of the matter when in reality you don’t seem bothered at all. Mr Mah Bow Tan has stated, “Each town council has the duty to explain to its residents how it invests its funds, what is its philosophy, what are the risks it takes”. So far neither you nor any of the other PAP town councils have done anything of that sort. You even have the audacity to say that the town councils’ investment strategies cannot be revealed!
We pay the service and conservancy charges (S&CCs) so that the town councils can maintain our estates. We are not paying so that town councils can accumulate enormous sinking funds and act like little “Temaseks” and “GICs”.
If town councils can build up such huge sinking funds that they can invest it in high-risk investments, why is there a need to collect the charges at the present rates? I can’t help but compare this to the old NKF collecting millions in donations but spending only 10 cents out of every dollar on the patients. The rest was wastefully spent or accumulated into huge reserves as we eventually discovered to our horror and disgust.
I believe that our current S&CCs can be reduced dramatically. Such a move would be timely in the face of the worsening recession. Nothing is more ridiculous than paying more than is necessary to the town council so that it can gamble our money away or accumulate it for that elusive “rainy day”.
Much has been said and written about the responsibility of the PAP town councils and MPs in this issue. Dr Teo, as the Coordinating Chairman for PAP town councils, you have the ultimate responsibility in revealing and explaining all the investments by the town councils. For a change, please start giving truly genuine answers to the residents.
So Dr Teo Ho Pin, where is our money?
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Dear Ministers, NMPs and reporters reading this,
I think it is time you engage the public with honest answers and not cookie cutter like responses to the people, we have seen too many in the coporate world and the replies that you provide do not help give us a better understanding of how our money is put to “good use”
You should treat us like auditors and the best part of these exercise, it cost the Govt next to nothing for this audit , because Singaporeans are working for free to understand the investments in the making.
We are the stakeholders/share holders and we have every right to know.
I would suggest that you have an open session where you can meet the people and answer their queries, who knows you might learn a thing of two
Cheers
Dr Teo Ho Pin,
Coordinating Chairman of the PAP Town Councils
Please provide the details of the lift upgrading programs.
1. Why does it cost $100K per lift upgrading with the economy of scale offered by the HDB?
2. Why does it take so long for the lift upgrading work? Residents bear the inconvenience for more than a year at a go. Please provide details for the number of completed lift upgrading and average time taken for completion (yearly basis) for the past 10 years.
3. It is observed that progress is slow at many sites due to the small number of workers actually working at the sites. Are the lift upgrading projects awarded to the best contractors? How are the contractors managed? Are the residents getting the appropriate level of service for the amount of money paid to these contractors?
How funny, life comes in full circle.
SM Goh should have watched his word then. The people are now
examining all the PAP TCs’ accounts closely so what have you (SM Goh) to
say?
Since TCs are independent companies and they are unable to or refused o provide their yearly accounts for check and balance auditing, can the singaporeans sue them for this?
Do we have a case here? any lawyers around?
Dhevarajan, let me answer you on behalf of Dr Teo,
” Our funds are financially secure, we will take a conservative approach to the sinking fund investment. Don’t worry, your money is in good hands….”
haha
I am very impressed with Devarajan’ s letter. He has put across the points which I myself am very unhappy about and want to speak out but do not know how to do it. Thanks Deva for this most eloquent message telling Dr Teo Ho Pin what information exactly all of us want to know. Please Dr Teo, please for the sake of all the HDB folks who pay hard-earned money to the Town Councils, please be now forthright and answer the questions directly to the point. Our hard-earned money is meant strictly for maintaining our housing estates, and certainly not for gambling away with high-risk low return minibonds. If you were to do the same losing money in such minibonds in a private condo you would would have got hell from all the affected residents long ago.
he could have already land himself in jail as this is outright illegal in the private company.
Is somebody keeping a log of the ills of PAP government so that the public can be reminded when the Election is here?
“Is somebody keeping a log of the ills of PAP government so that the public can be reminded when the Election is here?”
when elections come, they will threaten you with upgrading and placate you with goodies and you will forget you have suffered under the last 4 years. and here we go again.
the power of the internet. the internet does not forget.one can keep an endless log, but if singaporeans choose to ignore that log for PAP’s goodies there’s no point anyway.
2008 is a watershed year for pap……what they have done from the past decade, particularly since glob shares saga etc have MAKE ME SICK!!
show me the money !
11) foreign talent to be on December 8th, 2008 12.20 am
2008 is a watershed year for pap……what they have done from the past decade, particularly since glob shares saga etc have MAKE ME SICK!!
What MM is going to do now for the people of singapore after all these ill saga plays alot in leaving him with a good or bad name down in history book prior to his departure.
And btw, life is not just about money alone!
Transparency PAP, Transparency.
to 10,
Well, people do make the mistake of biting the goodies bait. but for the pass few years, with all these going on, i think lesser people will bite the next time round unless “they” can come out with a super big goodie bait. but given that the previous bait has left a extremely bitter after taste in our mouth that last for a long time *years*…will they want to bite for a second time when it is been offered?
SINGAPOREANS WILL NOT FORGET!!
This ****-er MP should be terminated ASAP.
Tiredsingaporean,
My same sentiments as I also wonder can the residents sued for malpractices of funds here? The TCs are merely gatekeeprs and not owners of the funds – the residents are the real owners as they are the ones paying. TCs are merely safeguarding it and we don’t even know the details of our own investment.
Imagine if you pay your money into a trust fund and the fund manager tells you that hi sorry I can’t tell you how we invest the money for you as now the money does not belong to you but us! This is our banking investment secret! You can’t know how much is lost or gained with your money, go check with our annual report card.
For condominium maintenance funds, there are proper accounting and check system. It is clearly lacking here for TC funds. Estate managers are paid a salary with a team of maintenance/security officers. The advisory team consists of residents voted in by the residents themselves. There is alot of consultation and transparency here.
The current mangement of TCs has too much politics involved here. The MPs are involved. They select the committee members themsleves and residents have no say at all here. I am not surprised that these committee members are larely associated with the ruling party in one way or another or could even be RCs or CCCs members. The Co-ordinating Chairman is an MP, mayor and what not.
By giving the ruling party the mandate to rule over us we have actually sign away our basic citizen rights here.
aiyoyo
simple things do until so blur for commoners
cant understand why.
just release all needed info (per commoners query)
solve problem liao..
aiyoyo ELITEs
Dear Dr.Teo and the following NMP’s reading this
Maybe for a start you can show us the following in black and white
1) How much money was accumulated in “sinking funds” over the years
2) How much money was lost in investments (Please provide audit stamp – dates)
3) Please state the name of these investements that you have helped us invest in
4) Please also have proof of these investments
5) How much money was made in our investments ( Please provide audit stamp- dates)
6) How much money is left
6) The allocation of funds that were used for ACTUAL town coucil related work (e.g repairs, upgrades, etc, please also provide timeframes of these upgrades to help you understand, resource allocation versus the cost of project completion)
7) How much money is currently being invested in other investments (Please provide the names of these investments)
In short, a nice smooth audit footprint that shows us the paper trail of our money that you have collected.
You need not tell us your secret investment strategy, we just want to know the following
1) How much money was collected in total
2) How much spent
3) How much left
And please have the SMALL details available, if not Singaporeans trying to help piece the life cycle of the town council funds can’t do much with the half baked information provided
Cheers
Dhevarjan,
do you intend to send Dr Teo a copy of this letter? Please do. I think wat we need now is another template to send to the Town Council including questions on the myterious email addressed to Wei Kin and who is the ‘Minister’ who made the decision.
Singaporeans have been labeled as indifferent but when we tried to be more involved, we are seen as creating problems.
What the residents want is a very simple wish, just reveal the investments in the annual reports. Win or lose, we have a right to know since this is our money which we have blinded paid up over the years.
Even if money is lost, it doesn’t mean residents lose confidence in PAP and will vote in the opposition. There are risks to any Investment but so long as the details are revealed fully in annual reports and residents have scrutinized it, we will see less of the blame game.
However, if information is not forthcoming, our curiosity is piqued and the opposition may just be voted in so that the truth can be dug out.
LKY gone, PAP gone,
PAP gone, PAP town councils gone,
then we will know where is our money!
Well said, Blind Man. We want Dr Teo to disclose not only his toxic TC investments in the high-risk low return minibonds, but also his investments in all the toxic stocks and shares. How much did he lose in buying such a high amount of Creative Technology shares that his TC is registered in Creative Technology’s Annual Report as one of the top twenty shareholders of Creative Technology. Apart from Creative Technology shares please let us know what other toxic shares that he spent the TC’s money on? Please list out all the toxic shares bought by his TC. The losses are so huge that it is almost like playing in the casino.
Mr. Teo…STEP DOWN!
This is a classic case of how the notion of non-transaparency has sunk into all parts of the Singaporean life. GIC and Temasek on the notion of the OSA are barred from revealing their investment strategies as they maybe of strategic concerns to the country. Though, I am not a PAP supporter, I do find some justifications for that. What is happening since a fews years ago is that you have charities like NKF, using a similar arguement to shield their accounts from prying eyes. And then now, the Town Councils?!
The use of non-transparency to protect non-accountability and wasteful accumulation of funds should STOP! Town Councils is NOT GIC or Temasek, they are no different from the management committees in condos that are formed to help decide the allocation of funds to maintain the estate. So if even a small condo estate has got better transparency rules than a govt run town council. what does this say of the people managing them? 1st world? Yeah rite?!!
Transparency, nowadays u can’t even buy it in book shop anymore.
[i]2) Yogi Bear on December 7th, 2008 10.20 pm Dr Teo Ho Pin,
Coordinating Chairman of the PAP Town Councils
Please provide the details of the lift upgrading programs.
1. Why does it cost $100K per lift upgrading with the economy of scale offered by the HDB?
[/i]
the funny part is
potong pasir
lift only cost $80k per lift
how come pap wards extras more money?
installed with bulletproof and urineproof hardwares perhaps?
I support moshedyan. My lifts are being upgraded – complete with rats running wild noise and dust. I had asked my TC why it took longer to upgrade the place than to put up brand new blocks of flats – they said it was structurally more difficult.
We have to stop all these inane meaningless responses from our government-linked agencies, responses which do not speak to the questions asked. Are Singaporeans stupid??? I don’t think so,
Then why do we put up with being treated as though we are? Our IQ tests will be the next election.Let show show a strong IQ but voting OUT people who won’t speak to us, and who won’t acknowledge us as mature thinking human beings – whose taxes pay their very large salaries.
Vote him out, vote in Ling How doong
Teo Ho Pin should be sacked for doing a lousy job. You want top private sector pay, then be accountability like any top private sector employee!!!
We have enough of your “It’s an Honest Mistake, Let’s Move On”!!!
i am a teo supporter.
i hope he would run for election.
i want to show him the level of my support for him.
should the sinking fund not be used for lift upgrading?
i like to know the Y.
I URGE TCs to build highrise litter protection shelters for all HDB dwellers who Pay And Pay S&CC.
URGing is very effective you know?
I urge ha, got effect wan leh.
I urge and urge ah!
yibah untooneh!
Well, i guess Teo’s job is everybody wish….a top private sector pay with the accountability?
And this is a subject that is hard to move on with, and hard to forget since a huge amount of money, the citizen’s money, has been lost
I like to say a BIG THANKS! to our Dhevarajan.
If only I could write better than you, this article would have been under my name – you speak our minds for us!
bravo! keep up the good work! you have my full support.
Hoping to hear more from you in near future.
A disgusting leader without accountability to it’s people….. want good salary but no guts to admit mistake…..shame on u & yr party…..
THP was a small fly in Jurong CCC and carry my baxx all the way up.
If Dr Teo cannot give us a satisfactory answer, we should all stop paying our SC/CC charges. If we DIY, probably we can have twice as much work done for our estate with half as much collected.
It’s our own watergate…right now, right here!
Unless they clarifies and is downrigfht transparent with this issue.
24) Lim Peter on December 8th, 2008 10.37 am
LKY gone, PAP gone,
PAP gone, PAP town councils gone,
then we will know where is our money!
By the time we found out, it will be too late, maybe all our monies just disappeared and nobody is responsible by then. . . . the people responsible could just disappered too, who knows!
It was mentioned the returns from investments over the past 6 years was at 3%+.
After a splendid bull run followed by the bear which only started a year ago, the returns are only at a pathetic 3%? Certainly it is more prudent that the funds are to be invested in govt bonds which already yield 2%+.
Given the risk-reward, whoever managing the funds is giving a very poor return.
To all dear countrymen, espicially residents who lived under Town Council which are affected by mini-bonds. Here Ii would like to quote what SM Lee had say a few weeks ago, “You have had both your eyes open widely and in a clear state of mind when you walked into the voting station and vote for PAP knowing that they:
1. Never admit their mistakes, but claim credit for things not done by them,
2. Never practice what they preached,
3. Never give the citizens their “knowing” rights,
4. Are arrogant, power-hungry, greedy, “wayang”, etc…………..
Superb PAP, ignorant citizens.
More good years to Dr Teo for giving an own goal to Lions.. :) hope to see you grandstand come next electon.
41) tiredsingaporean
won’t it ve just like what happen with those US companies…by the time the truth is uncovered, it is too late le…and the top execs just went poof!
“won’t it ve just like what happen with those US companies…”
No, No … it is very different.
In the US, if such thing happen, it means a bunch of somebody have to be responsible and go to jail. But in Singapore, when that happens and the truth uncovers, it means time to MOVE ON TO MORE GOOD YEARS !
Why have you not said anything?
Why have you not stepped forward?
You do not live in a HDB flat?
Too high class to live in HDB ?
Your high pay not affected by any hike or anything ?
Please stand up for your less well-off people who helped built this nation.
The rest of the people owe it to themselves to do what they can to get some answers.
I just hope that in the coming elections, our fellow Singaporeans (especially the 66.6%) can vote wisely and dun just sell your votes away for some “growth” or “restructuring” shares, they are no different from the vote buying money that Thaksin was freely distributing in the rural north of Thailand. We are better than farmers yahs?!
The last election was hijacked by the PAP as they went into an overtune of character assassination over a bloody misplaced form. For a simple piece of paper, WKS, MM Lee, SM Goh, PM Lee went on a rampage on the MSM. And now when their town councils lost millions and terrorists escape from Singapore, we are supposed to “move on.”
Think about it, is this the kind of Singapore that we want to leave behind for our children. Economic growth and improved standards of living brought about by our forefathers and our nation’s early leaders led by MM Lee are to praise for what we have today. But are they and the party’s way of governing still relevant for us and our children? Think before you vote, dun be a farmer!
45) SZ on December 8th, 2008 9.39 pm 41) tiredsingaporean
won’t it ve just like what happen with those US companies…by the time the truth is uncovered, it is too late le…and the top execs just went poof!
Exactly! based on past politics in any country, the patterns are still similar, when ruling party fails, alot of dirty things will just surface and the people responsible would just disappear. Take some good examples like Thaksin, Suharto and Marcos, are they not the same?
49) tiredsingaporean
Yeah true, but ours are not corrupted like them *ahem*…i mean isn’t that part of the reason why their pay increase….to reduce/prevent corruption….since they are so highly paid, they can’t be corrupted right?so they will definitely not be caught in the same way like those three….*ahem*