More Govt Lapses

This latest revelation of public fund mismanagement is strangely reminiscent of the MSK debacle.

This Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reminds me of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) set up by the MHA to investigate into MSK’s escape. The PAC comprises a group of Members of Parliament that acts like the "Audit Committee" of the Government.

“Acts” is the operative word as it really has no real authority or expertise to conduct audit checks. In fact, they merely consider the Auditor-General's Report, and examine the Government Financial Statements and other accounts which are presented to the Parliament.

This is of course not the first time we are hearing of this committee.

It is really uniquely Singapore for government watchdog groups comprising of ruling party members.

In the first revelation of public fund mismanagement, it was positively constructed as lapses caught in time and corrected. For MSK, it is lucky that his escape uncovered lapses due to Singaporean’s complacency, and this is duly corrected as well.

End of the day, we are still left wondering if there were more alarming lapses that have not been revealed. We all remember how some golden taps unmasked sordid misappropriation of charitable contributions at the NKF.

Will glass panels be the downfall of the supreme court?

$1.5m of govt fund mismanagement uncovered by public accounts
panel
By Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia Posted: 08 May 2008 2354 hrs

SINGAPORE: The Health Ministry overpaid nearly S$180,000 of financial
aid to people without realising they had died.

This was one of public fund lapses uncovered, according to a six-page
report by the Public Accounts Committee, a parliamentary watchdog which
scrutinises the annual financial statements of government bodies.

The report highlighted the various lapses of three government ministries, a
statutory board and the Supreme Court.

The Health Ministry was particularly cited for overpaying S$178,150 of financial aid to beneficiaries who had died. After being informed of the lapse, the ministry said it had since recovered S$85,200.

However, the rest remains unclaimed since the policy is not to recover payouts made up to 3 months of a person's death.

The ministry said it will review its policy of allowing a grace period, and
has since agreed to work with the Ministry of Home Affairs to obtain death
records of beneficiaries on a monthly basis.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also found to have S$1.56m of unclaimed medical bills. These were incurred since 2003, during three overseas missions. The Ministry says it is currently filing the claims to its insurance company.

The report also uncovered unnecessary expenditure of S$30,789 by the Supreme Court for replacing glass panels. Administrators have since recovered the amount from the contractors.

The Manpower Ministry was also found to have made excessive advances to a building management agent. The ministry said the law does not allow it to claim interest on the excessive advances paid.

However, a new contract, effective 2006, states that payments can only be
made after works are carried out by contractors. Other safeguards, such as a
banker's guarantee, are also in place to make sure advances to contractors can
be recovered.

The InfoComm Development Authority was found to have mismanaged cash surpluses.

Under the current legal system, not all government bodies are required to be inspected by the Auditor-General.

But the latest report recommends an expansion. So the Auditor-General will
look into 18 statutory boards in the coming financial year, an increase from the
previous 13. - CNA/ir

A Toilet With A View - COI Report on MSK Escape

The COI report is out and Wong Kan Seng has delivered his statement in parliament this afternoon. I’ve looked through the speech and I must say that im shocked, dumbfounded and stupefied. Here are some of snippets of the speech and my reactions to them.

A Toilet with a view

Para 23 – […] ISD had instructed the vendor to install grilles for all windows. But when the renovation works were carried out in 2007, this toilet ventilation window was not grilled up. This arose due to a difference in understanding between ISD and the vendor over exactly which windows were to be secured with grilles.

If the instructions were for ALL windows to be grilled, how can there be a misunderstanding over exactly WHICH windows?? This calls into question the Government’s tendering processes and selection criteria. Were the contractors the cheapest tender? Have they been used for other installations of national interest?

How many guards does it take to knock a door?

Para 16 to 17 – […] After a few minutes, the guard felt that Mas Selamat was taking too long. He alerted the other guard standing outside the toilet, who then turned to the Special Duty Operative who was outside. The Special Duty Operative, who is female, subsequently asked Mas Selamat’s male Assistant Case Officer to check on Mas Selamat as he was in a male toilet.

The COI correctly pointed out that the guards failed in their duties. But even I can tell you that! The first gurkha should have knocked to ask why was he taking so long (he did not). The second gurkha should have asked the first gurkha to do that (he did not). The female officer should have asked the gurkhas to do that (she did not). How many guards does it take to knock a door? Apparently the answer is 4.

Now you see it, no you don’t

Para 31 is rather long so I shall just summarize it as: there were 2 cctv cameras mounted where Mas climbed out. But there was no recording or active monitoring. But they are very good cameras because they were being upgraded with motion-detectors. But they were not fixed yet.

I really have to question the Ministry’s budget allocation. Equipping cctv cameras with motion detectors most definitely does not come cheap. But this is money well spent if they are turned on wouldn’t you think. What really bugs me is that if you are already spending so much to upgrade the surveillance systems, why be stingy with backups or redundancy systems. Couldn’t the old systems remain active while testing new ones?

The buck stops with you, not me

Para 55 – […] The COI observed that no one individual had full control to bring
about the confluence of the material factors at the time of Mas Selamat’s
escape.

I completely disagree with this point. If anyone, the superintendent had the control to prevent the escape from happening. He may not have been the guard who lost his line of sight of Mas Selamat, but he as the ‘CO of the camp’ (using SAF terminology as it was mentioned that he held a rank equivalent to an Lieutenant Colonel), would be responsible for setting up the centre’s S.O.Ps and ensuring that the physical security (grilles, fences, cctvs..etc) are shipshape.

Para 66 – […] I have asked Director ISD to examine the roles not only of the
WRDC junior officers but also to go up the chain of command and include the
supervisory and management levels of WRDC as well…

I’m glad that junior officers will not be the only ones singled out for blame. As mentioned above, out of all identified, surely the superintendent would have a ‘helicopter’ view of the entire centre.