Lawrence Wong and his sound of silence

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2015...nd-of-silence/

One of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth is to regulate charities.

When it come to charities, sometimes wanting to do good is not enough.

When you are responsible for public monies, whether donations or fees, good intentions are not enough to prevent bad outcomes.

From time to time, some charities get into trouble because of the mismanagement of funds and poor governance. The dishonest ones would choose to stay silent, hoping that it would go unnoticed. But, eventually, questions grow too loud, and the issues burst into the open, as they rightly should.

In recent weeks, the centre of attention has not been a charity, but a statutory board, specifically, the People’s Association (PA).

In the last 10 years, the PA has been consistently flagged “adverse opinion” for its grassroots organisations’ non-submission of financial accounts.

In fact, recently PA has faced repeated questions – from its own auditor, the public and now the Auditor General’s Office (AGO).

The situation worsened sharply this year. The AGO reported a whopping 30 per cent of the 115 GROs it audited having financial irregularities. This comes on the back of at least 10 years of poor rating given to the PA by its own auditors.

The AGO’s findings came suddenly, without warning.

After that, silence.

Something is seriously wrong.

The public is naturally concerned. They continue to query PA several times.

But so far, all we have got from PA are prevarications, non-answers, and sweeping assurances that things will be all right.

It reminds me of an erratic TV set that works initially. After a while, the image starts to flicker, and then with an almighty bang, the screen goes black. Eventually, a message appears on the screen: Please don’t adjust your controls. Your TV is working fine; the picture will return shortly.

But nothing more happens.

Recently, the PA explained that the AGO findings were due to grassroots leaders not understanding the PA’s financial rules.

But PA has had its own auditors audit its account for more than a decade with “adverse opinion” ratings. Why didn’t the PA look into the issue then?

Anyway, why is the PA not making public its investigation, after supposedly establishing the facts, and informing the public?

Perhaps, there is a good explanation for all this.

But maybe, just maybe, there are bigger problems lurking behind the tangled web?

The PA’s expenditure estimate this year was increased from $500 million to $1 billion. Given the AGO findings, I am not the only one queasy about goings-on in the PA.

In fact, the issue is not just the financial irregularities, but the governance and supervision of the GROs, and what the PA Board of Management is doing (or not) to resolve the matter.

Nobody knows – which is precisely the problem.

Every year, the PA receives hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money through the Government.

Residents and Singaporeans deserve to know that their money is being properly managed and spent by the GROs, and that everyone who is supposed to be accountable is, indeed, accountable.

But unless PA starts being transparent and accountable and answers questions, Singaporeans may never know the truth.

When pressed recently, PA said that it was setting up a Grassroots Finance Review Committee to prevent a recurrence of procurement lapses flagged in the AGO report.

There is a disturbingly familiar pattern in how the Government responds whenever questions are raised about its conduct.

It has happened again and again – poor workmanship in BTO and DBSS flats, public transport breakdowns, wages and jobs, etc.

First, its leaders say it is not a big deal. Then, when they can no longer pretend it is not a big deal, they blame someone else – the flat buyers, commuters, lazy or choosy PMETs. Then, when their excuses are exposed one by one, they say “we are looking into the matter”, or that things will be explained – in “due time”. And then, more silence.

Perhaps, the PA hopes that by lying low and keeping its head down, the matter will go away. The public may forget, or even better, not notice.

But it will not, and the public will not. Instead, the PAP Government’s credibility and integrity are slowly but surely draining away.

After many residents and commentators in the media raised questions, I was expecting the Minister in charge of the PA, Lawrence Wong, to issue a prompt and full reply, and end his long and damaging silence.

Sadly, nothing of the sort has happened.

Instead, there is silence – one that is growing more deafening by the day.


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