Aljunied-Hougang Town Council had to develop new financial system: Sylvia Lim

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http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC121214-0000136/Audit-process-took-longer-as-AHTC-had-to-develop-new-financial-system,-says-Sylvia-Lim-in-response-to-TCMR

Responding to a less than stellar showing in the latest Town Council Management Report (TCMR), Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) has said that the audit process took "longer-than-expected" as the AHTC, run by the Workers' Party, had to develop a new computer and financial system after last year's General Election, said AHTC chairman Sylvia Lim in a statement.

Ms Lim said following the General Election last year, the town council was informed that its computer and financial systems would be terminated by Aug 1, last year, "due to material changes in the membership of the town council".

"This Computer and Financial Systems had been developed jointly by the 14 PAP Town Councils over a period of more than 15 months but was in January 2011 sold to and leased back from M/s Action Information Management Pte Ltd, a company which was dormant," said Ms Lim. "This effectively meant that the AHTC had to develop its own equivalent systems, in particular the Financial System, within a 2 months' timeframe."

Ms Lim noted that the recent audit "thus required a reconciliation of books maintained under two different Financial Systems and a lot of time was spent with the auditors identifying and re-classifying accounting items in order to gel them for the audit".

She also pointed out that the Audited Report for FY 2011/12 for the period August 2011 to March 2012 showed that the receipts, expenditure, investment of moneys and acquisition and disposal of assets by the town council were in accordance with the provisions of the Act. Proper accounting and other records have also been kept.

"There is still work to be done in this Financial year to reconcile some of the items arising from the takeover and the initial setting up," said Ms Lim. "However, we wish to assure residents and the public that with most of the setting-up issues out of the way we will now look into enhancing our financial management process."

Additional:
Action Information Management Pte Ltd (AIM) uses a virtual office address that belongs to KCS Corporate Services Pte Ltd (KCS), a company that provides corporate services to companies.

AIM is run by 3 directors who are former PAP MPs: Mr Chandra Das, Mr Lau Ping Sum and Mr Chew Heng Ching.

There are only 2 shareholders in the company: Mr Chandra Das and Mr Lau Ping Sum. Each holds a one-dollar share in the company.

It is not known how much PAP sold the system to AIM and how much rental fees were paid to AIM for leasing the system back. It is also not known how AIM is to provide technical support for the use of the system by the PAP Town Councils from a “virtual office”.