Daily Lessons from Life 15 February 2018 - CNY Present in Sgp Politics

"AHTC resolves audit issues, declares new financial system fully operational

EINGAPORE: The Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) said on Thursday (Feb 15) that it has resolved all its outstanding audit issues and ended its engagement with auditors KPMG, concluding a two-year long clean-up of its accounting system and internal controls.

The Workers' Party-run town council appointed KPMG as its accountants in 2016 after the Supreme Court ordered AHTC to nominate a Big Four accounting firm to fix lapses the Auditor-General's Office had flagged in a special audit in 2016.

The Workers' Party said in a Facebook post that AHTC submitted to the Housing and Development Board the 23rd and final monthly report issued by KPMG on Thursday.

In the report, KPMG confirmed it is "reasonably satisfied that AHTC is compliant with section 35(c) of the Town Council Act" and that all audit points and control-related matters identified earlier have been resolved.

Issues flagged previously include incorrect computation of required transfers to the Sinking Fund and incomplete disclosure of transactions with related parties in the financial statements.

The town council also had to undertake various measures to remedy the lapses, such as to strengthen the capabilities of its finance department and to replace its accounting system."

This is BIG!! A very significant breakthrough for the WP as this millstone around its neck had been the singular reason many neutral would sure if they should give WP their votes in the last GE! Now there is no more target to shout at or "insinuate" or attack for the PAP hounds. It would be interesting to see how the WP n PAP play their cards on this heavyweight issue of Town Council (TC) governance going forward. 

It is only for pure speculation how much the 2-yr engagement had cost AHTC at the order of the court. And also what could hv been had the WP voluntarily appointed 1 of the trusted Big 4 firms to "clear all outstanding" issues (of course there r some ego said the Big 4 would do it if they weren't asked by the government as they had too much to lose to 'antagonise' the power that. Possible?) on their own? 

Whatever it is, that's no longer relevant. The key is WP can safely say their MPs r truly "acctg n finance" conversant now. That they can manage TC as well as the PAP MPs. So, the voters hv more confidence. 

Hope the WP leverage on this big breakthrough n work on winning more votes n parliamentary seats in GE2020/2021!!

May PAP be ready to win more votes too against a burden-less WP. That can only benefit the voters! N democracy!!

Happy year of the Dog as every dog has its days!!