Among the overwhelming attacks by all 83 PAP MPs, the PAP MP for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, Zainal Sapari, charged that the Opposition town council “contaminated” his town council’s account “through no fault of our own”:
“The lack of documents and insufficient information provided by AHTC hampered my town council’s ability to manage the town. It was unfortunate that the poor practices and failure of compliance by AHTC then contaminated the entire set of accounts for the whole of PRPGTC, through no fault of our own.”
PAP MP Zainal then said the WP’s “poor practices” resulted in a 15 months delay in the transfer of accounts.
WP MP Pritam Singh then took the floor asking the PAP MP why did he not approach the WP town council chairman Sylvia Lim directly to deal with the issue, and pointed out that the WP waited 18 months after it won the by-election in 2013.
“When WP had won Punggol East SMC after a by-election in 2013, our town council only received the final transfer of funds from PRPGTC some 18 months later. I believe the deadline is not too different.”
New citizen PAP MP Janil Puthucheary who has never served National Service then stood up claiming that the WP can’t make such a comparison without explaining why:
“The comparison is entirely false, because the reasons for the delays are entirely different. PRPGTC’s earlier delay, was because of discussions about the terms and conditions of the handover. The recent delay by AHTC, on the other hand, was due to an inability by both sides to ascertain how much was to be transferred.”
PAP MP Charles Chong joined in the fray saying:
“It is only when we served a letter of demand that AHTC paid back the S$4 million.”
Parliament Speaker Halimah Yacob and Senior Minister Desmond Lee then stopped the Opposition MPs from voicing their argument in the name of “order”.
The town council accounts of the Opposition Workers’ Party (WP) went into disarray due to the abrupt withdrawal of long-time accounts-managment contractor AIM. WP was denied the use of the accounting software by AIM – a company set up by ex-PAP MPs. Despite the accounting mess, the WP was cleared of corruption or any criminal charges by the Auditor-General’s Office, which garnered the dictator Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s wrath.
Through Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s “advice”, the puppet Singapore president Tony Tan appointed an ex-PAP MP Hri Kumar to be the new Deputy Attorney-General, in a calculated move to charge the opposition town council of corruption and jail the WP MPs.
A new law was also passed yesterday (Mar 10) that allows the ruling party government to by-pass the Auditor-General’s Office to conduct “checks” and demand the opposition-held town council to take “remedial actions” as they deem fit. The law was passed in a landslide of 83 to 9, with all 9 nays from the 9 WP MPs.