The Workers’ Party trial in the past two weeks has been enlightening: it revealed the level of scum behaviour from the ruling party PAP when they lose the election. The 3 WP MPs are seeing themselves being sued for bankruptcy today no thanks to a deviously orchestrated political sabotage comprising of proxy companies, cunningly-crafted regulations and biased third-party auditors.
At the heart of the WP trial is two chief saboteurs: CPG Facilities Management and AIM. Both companies have been the incumbent contractors for every PAP town council, and benefited undisclosed hundreds of millions ever since the HDB privatised town council services in 1999. As everyone suspected, the two companies are owned by cronies of the ruling party PAP, with managers of CPG being directly hired (or termed as “double-hatting” with the PAP explanation) on a second salary as general managers in the PAP town councils. AIM is more brazen, its Chairman and directors are former PAP MPs. Conflict of interest is an understatement, this is literally corruption at works.
It is bad enough to know that such blatant corruptions were not called out in the Singapore court, the Singapore system condone theft as well. At the court trial, it was established that AIM stole essential data and software required to keep Aljunied town council running. No criminal charges was filed, and not a single person who called himself judicious called out the theft.
Then standing as the other tripod leg for PAP are the self-styled “independent auditors” from KPMG and Pricewatercoopers (PwC). The two companies were paid an undisclosed amount by the ruling party for presenting themselves as leading prosecution witnesses at the trial. It was however revealed at the trial that the two auditors, published lopsided audit reports using speculations and fabrications. At the court trial, KPMG had to correct itself for using the term “improper payments” while PwC admitted that it fabricated some allegations in the report to make the Opposition party look bad.
Last, there is the corrupted town council financial regulations the Ministry of National Development created to sabotage any non-PAP town council. In a nutshell, the poorly-worded regulation twisted the definition of public works, turned it into “town council services” and then handed over the responsibility to the elected MP representative. As what MP Low Thia Khiang experienced, a newly-elected MP had to somehow transform himself into an IT consultant, Contract Administrator, formulate new town council policies and write new specifications for tender issuance. The incumbent contractors will immediately terminate their contract once you win the constituency, as CPG and AIM demonstrated after the WP won Aljunied GRC in 2011, and you will be responsible for each line written in the tender you are issuing.
The three traps were laid and activated, and coupled with the case being heard in a Singapore court and the prosecution being led by Lee Hsien Loong’s top dog Davinder Singh, the verdict is already out. The court proceedings is, and has been in the past two weeks, simply being just another propaganda material for the government state media to smear the opposition.
It is also tragic to see that the WP MPs, who overcame their handicap and delivered quality town council services to their constituents, are now the “bad people” in court for cheating. Going by WP’s experience, being an elected MP of the Opposition in Singapore means facing repeated harassment from the ruling party, having their town council funding disrupted, subjecting themselves to countless disruptive audits and lawsuits, and being objects of ridicule by the government propaganda mouthpiece Straits Times.
Politics is dirty not because a newly-elected Opposition MP tries his best for his constituents, but because the ruling party PAP incumbent is a power-obsessed scum.
Alex Tan
STR Editor