I was actually quite pleased when it was first announce that a regular and systematic review of town council performances would be instituted. With the revelations of heavy Town Council loses due to what can only be described as irresponsible and excuberant risk taking, more accountability and transparencey indeed sounded sound.
Alas, the reality will not live up to the promises; at least for the near-term.
The half-yearly review will focus almost entirely on grading the cleanliness of one town council against another. Really, what is this fascination with clean and green? The 80s are long gone. And as one concerned resident noted, wouldnt this desire to out do each other just lead to higher conservancy charges, and ultimately more wastage?
And what is missing is the detailed breakdown of sinking fund usage. This will not be included in the grading system for now, as the ministry said that it wants to focus on bread-and-butter aspects for a start.
So while they try to preoccupy us with bread-and-butter, the use of our hard-earned jam and marmalade will continue to be mystery to us.
------------------------------------------------------------
Half-yearly grading of town councils starting soon
They will be graded on how well they maintain their estates' cleanliness and facilities. -myp Thu, Sep 24, 2009, my paper
By Rachel Chan
FROM next month, town councils will be inspected more systematically.
They will be graded on how well they maintain their estates' cleanliness and facilities, including lifts, and manage conservancy charges in arrears.
Using a checklist, Housing Board officers will inspect towns under the 16 town councils every six months, for defects like litter, leaky pipes and damaged playground equipment.
They will grade each council's performance in cleaning and maintenance based on the number of defects found. For example, a town council would get the best grade for maintenance if each of its blocks has fewer than two defects on average.
Currently, inspections are done on an ad-hoc basis.
The town councils have to submit their rates of lift breakdowns and lift automatic-rescue device failures, and conservancy charges in arrears to the HDB.
The results will be published by the town councils every six months from middle of next year.
The grading is expected to spur town councils to raise their standards.
Mr Inderjit Singh, who chairs the Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang Town Council, said: "Residents will get a chance to see how their town council is performing, with respect to the others."
He added that the grading will compel town councils to improve their performance, so as to at least match one another, if not do better.
Mr Ang Mong Seng, who chairs Hong Kah Town Council, said that he would instruct his staff to conduct more frequent maintenance checks on public amenities.
The Ministry for National Development announced last December that a system to assess town councils' performance would be set up, after it came to light in Parliament that eight People's
Action Party-run town councils invested $16 million in troubled structured products.
But their use of sinking funds will not be included in the grading system for now, as the ministry said that it wants to focus on bread-and-butter aspects for a start.
Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education Grace Fu said yesterday: "This is something that we're looking to incorporate, perhaps, at the later stage."
Ubi resident David Ng, 35, a quality-assurance engineer, expressed concern that higher efficiency would translate into higher conservancy charges.
He also hoped that the sixmonthly report could include a simple statement on the use of his town council's sinking funds.
He said: "Laymen like me just need to know whether there's a profit or a loss. It's our money they're investing after all."
rachchan@sph.com.sg
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Showing posts with label Town council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Town council. Show all posts
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Monday, November 24, 2008
Video interview with Singaporeans from three different constituencies on their views of Town Councils’ loss of sinking funds
Video interview with Singaporeans from three different constituencies on their views of Town Councils’ loss of sinking funds - Posted by wayangparty on November 23, 2008
Presented by the video production team, The Singapore Enquirer
Street interviews with:
Bukit Panjang residents (Part 1) on 19 Nov 2008
Bukit Panjang residents (Part 2) on 19 Nov 2008
Ang Mo Kio residents on 20 Nov 2008
Whampoa residents on 22 Nov 2008
Read the rest here.
Presented by the video production team, The Singapore Enquirer
Street interviews with:
Bukit Panjang residents (Part 1) on 19 Nov 2008
Bukit Panjang residents (Part 2) on 19 Nov 2008
Ang Mo Kio residents on 20 Nov 2008
Whampoa residents on 22 Nov 2008
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Town Council Revelation - let's stop throwing good money after bad
In Parliament yesterday, it was revealed that 8 town councils (TC) run by the People's Action Party have about 16 million invested in troubled structured products; 12 million of which belongs to Holland-Bukit Panjang TC (8 million) whose chairman is incidentally the coordinating chairman for all the 14 PAP TCs.
Naturally, Dr Teo Ho Pin has defended the TCs' investment strategy as being prudent by quoting the often used financial term “diversified”. His strategy may very well be diversified, but an averaged return of 3% per annum in the last six years before the debacle of this mini-bond saga those make you wonder if the investment choices were sound in the first place.
According to Dr Teo, Holland-Bukit Panjang has 8 million is invested in Minibonds and Jubilee notes, which works out to 6.7 per cent of its investible funds. And, it has another $3 million in the potentially-troubling Pinnacle Notes Series 6 arranged by Morgan Stanley.
Therefore, his TC had invested about 9% of its investible portion in structured instruments which are worth close to nothing now.
But wait a minute, while we know how much went into these bad investments, we do not know the total amount invested in what he described as deposits, securities and other financial products.
We do know that the proportion of investible funds are limited to 35%. Since 8 million is 6.7% of this portion, we know that Holland-Bukit Panjang TC alone has about 340 million in sinking funds. Therefore according to the rules, approx 119 million is available to Holland-Bukit Panjang TC for investments.
How much money do the TCs have?
Dr Teo further added that 16 million is 0.8 per cent of all their funds available for investment. Thus, all the TCs combined have 2 billion apportioned for investments. As he limited to the investible portion is 35% of the total sinking fund, TCs have about 5.7 billion! Yes, billion.
But that’s not all. As the sinking fund is distinct from the operating fund for short-term expenses, the amount can only go up. Conservative estimates would probably put the figure between 6 – 7 billion.
Crappy returns
Even if you can get pass this excessive hoarding of public monies for who knows what purpose, don’t you think an Investment strategy that returned an average of 3 per cent a year during an extend bull-run - and even before the fiasco this September involving Lehman-linked products – is simply crap!
Especially when an average 2.9% return on 10-year Singapore Government Securities bonds was scoffed in the hope of earning a measly 0.1% more.
And to rub salt to Division 1/hand-picked /future leaders/A team/PAP-ministars, Hokkien Low’s (Thia Khiang) Hougang TC investment returns averaged 6 per cent a year.
Personally, I question the need for quasi-governmental institution to hoard such large amounts of money. For one thing, they often do not know what to do with them and as a result they turn to “financial experts” whom as far as we know could be their nephews, grassroots leaders and what-not.
Don’t believe such corruption / graft is possible? When there is money on the table, greedy hands are soon to follow.
Two things I would like to see
Firstly, my worry is that as these worthless structured products were once considered conservative and safe options based on guidance from rating agencies. Add in the fact that no one throws all their eggs into a single basket (at least I hope) and a diversified portfolio includes both low and high risk investments, I have to wonder what other products made up the entire portfolio for Holland-Bukit Panjang TC.
If these mini-bond notes were considered low risk at that time, what were the high risk items that were purchased with the remaining investible portion of the sinking fund? I hope the TC will be more transparent about its investment portfolio.
And secondly, I hope that in light of the performance of the MPs involved, their year-end bonuses would be withheld and pumped back into replenishing that was lost due to their poor leadership and oversight. Let's not reward mediocrity with good public money. Afterall, we are already running a budget deficit 3 times more than expected.
Other readings:
No Bonuses for Top Executives at UBS
Goldman execs choose to forgo 2008 bonuses
Naturally, Dr Teo Ho Pin has defended the TCs' investment strategy as being prudent by quoting the often used financial term “diversified”. His strategy may very well be diversified, but an averaged return of 3% per annum in the last six years before the debacle of this mini-bond saga those make you wonder if the investment choices were sound in the first place.
According to Dr Teo, Holland-Bukit Panjang has 8 million is invested in Minibonds and Jubilee notes, which works out to 6.7 per cent of its investible funds. And, it has another $3 million in the potentially-troubling Pinnacle Notes Series 6 arranged by Morgan Stanley.
Therefore, his TC had invested about 9% of its investible portion in structured instruments which are worth close to nothing now.
But wait a minute, while we know how much went into these bad investments, we do not know the total amount invested in what he described as deposits, securities and other financial products.
We do know that the proportion of investible funds are limited to 35%. Since 8 million is 6.7% of this portion, we know that Holland-Bukit Panjang TC alone has about 340 million in sinking funds. Therefore according to the rules, approx 119 million is available to Holland-Bukit Panjang TC for investments.
How much money do the TCs have?
Dr Teo further added that 16 million is 0.8 per cent of all their funds available for investment. Thus, all the TCs combined have 2 billion apportioned for investments. As he limited to the investible portion is 35% of the total sinking fund, TCs have about 5.7 billion! Yes, billion.
But that’s not all. As the sinking fund is distinct from the operating fund for short-term expenses, the amount can only go up. Conservative estimates would probably put the figure between 6 – 7 billion.
Crappy returns
Even if you can get pass this excessive hoarding of public monies for who knows what purpose, don’t you think an Investment strategy that returned an average of 3 per cent a year during an extend bull-run - and even before the fiasco this September involving Lehman-linked products – is simply crap!
Especially when an average 2.9% return on 10-year Singapore Government Securities bonds was scoffed in the hope of earning a measly 0.1% more.
And to rub salt to Division 1/hand-picked /future leaders/A team/PAP-ministars, Hokkien Low’s (Thia Khiang) Hougang TC investment returns averaged 6 per cent a year.
Personally, I question the need for quasi-governmental institution to hoard such large amounts of money. For one thing, they often do not know what to do with them and as a result they turn to “financial experts” whom as far as we know could be their nephews, grassroots leaders and what-not.
Don’t believe such corruption / graft is possible? When there is money on the table, greedy hands are soon to follow.
Two things I would like to see
Firstly, my worry is that as these worthless structured products were once considered conservative and safe options based on guidance from rating agencies. Add in the fact that no one throws all their eggs into a single basket (at least I hope) and a diversified portfolio includes both low and high risk investments, I have to wonder what other products made up the entire portfolio for Holland-Bukit Panjang TC.
If these mini-bond notes were considered low risk at that time, what were the high risk items that were purchased with the remaining investible portion of the sinking fund? I hope the TC will be more transparent about its investment portfolio.
And secondly, I hope that in light of the performance of the MPs involved, their year-end bonuses would be withheld and pumped back into replenishing that was lost due to their poor leadership and oversight. Let's not reward mediocrity with good public money. Afterall, we are already running a budget deficit 3 times more than expected.
Other readings:
No Bonuses for Top Executives at UBS
Goldman execs choose to forgo 2008 bonuses
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