The Workers’ Party (WP) yesterday called on the Government to get to the “root causes” of the systemic lapses flagged in the latest annual audit of the public sector by the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO).

The multiple lapses in public-sector spending and governance — detailed in a report released last week — are “matters of grave public concern” and should be adequately addressed by the Government, the opposition party said in a press statement, adding that “instituting preventive and deterrent measures are critical in ensuring that public funds are not misspent”.

Of particular concern, it said, were the recurring lapses by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leon Perera, the deputy chair of the party’s media team, said: “WP calls for transparency on the interventions that will be applied to correct systemic lapses and to repair the damage done. For example, will forensic audits be conducted, independent accountants attached to the relevant agencies or liquidated damages pursued?”

These were some of the actions the party was called to do or has done in the long-standing concerns surrounding the former Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council — now the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council — that it runs, after deficient accounting practices and lapses in corporate governance were previously found by the AGO.

On the latest lapses by the MOE, Mr Perera highlighted that “more than half of the scholars selected by the AGO for test-checks failed to fulfil their scholarship obligations to Singapore”, but MOE said in a statement late last night that the “half” was for delays in sending them letters of reminders to update their status and these were not in default.

Over the last three years, 1 per cent of such foreign students had intentionally defaulted, and the MOE is taking action to recover the liquidated damage and impose penalties on them, the ministry said. “There have been delays in sending them the letters because most of the cases that AGO flagged were from earlier graduation batches, before the enhanced measures were fully implemented.”

On the other matter that close to S$512 million of tuition fee loans and study loans given out to students of institutes of higher learning were still outstanding as at end-June 2015, the MOE clarified that only a small percentage, 1.4 per cent, is in default and may be unrecoverable.

Apart from the MOE, the WP also mentioned the AGO’s findings on the Housing and Development Board, and the Singapore Police Force. Mr Perera said the WP’s Members of Parliament would be seeking answers to some questions, and getting clarifications on these lapses and the Government’s remedial actions at the next sitting of Parliament.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by TODAY Online

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