WP town council's 'main concern' is completing audit

THE Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council's (AHPETC) "main concern" now is to bring the audit of its financial reports to a close soon, said its chairman Sylvia Lim on Monday.

She declined to give a firm deadline but said: "We expect the audit to come to a close soon (and) we see some signs of that already... We have to bring it to a close, which is our main concern."

The delay in submitting its audited reports to the Ministry of National Development led to the Workers' Party-run town council getting a "pending" grade for corporate governance in the latest report card on town councils, issued last week.

In a statement then, Ms Lim said AHPETC's auditors were still addressing some issues, including "complexities resulting from the handover legacy".

AHPETC appointed its auditors in early May this year, which Ms Lim on Monday said fell within the normal timeframe for town councils. Generally, the rule of thumb is for the audited financial reports to be submitted about six months after the close of the financial year in March, she said.

Asked if the handover issues had to do with AHPETC migrating to a new IT system, Ms Lim said: "Our IT system is at the moment still being refined, so it is not perfect yet."

When AHPETC also received a "pending" corporate governance grade last year, it cited the new IT system as a reason. It said the old vendor, a firm run by the People's Action Party (PAP), terminated its services after the WP took over the town council.

Ms Lim reiterated that commissioning an IT system from scratch would take 18 to 24 months. "Anything shorter than that, I think, would be a bonus," she said.

Asked if AHPETC would do anything differently next year to improve its corporate governance score, she said it "depends on how the auditors want to run the audit".

"Every year they may come with different sorts of questions... how far they want to probe is another issue."

Emphasising she did not want a repeat of the drawn-out exchange between the PAP and WP after the release of last year's report card, Ms Lim said: "We are still grappling with some handover issues and, if the auditors need time to sort it out, then I think the time has to be spent to sort it out."

She noted that residents have not spoken to her about AHPETC's corporate governance grading.

Some, however, apologised for causing the council to get a red banding for the management of service and conservancy charge arrears.

However, AHPETC has made a "concerted effort" to deal with arrears management since last year, said Ms Lim.

andreao@sph.com.sg

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