ANSWERS TO THE MISGUIDED TIRADE AGAINST WP'S AHPETC

<Facebook post by Andrew Loh>

Eh Hri Kumar, try and get acquainted with the facts first before you start whacking again lah. Wah lau. Just 2 days ago it was Tharman who got his facts wrong about AHPETC. Now Hri Kumar - joining the ranks of Desmond Lee and K Shanmugam who have got facts wrong when debating about AHPETC.

PAP just wanna whack WP and disregard the facts nowadays. Liddat also can? So desperate meh?

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Here are my answers to Hri Kumar's misguided tirade:

• Why hasn’t the WP carried out any independent investigation into the many areas of concern raised by the Auditor-General’s Office?
- Huh? AGO found certain things were not complied with and AHPETC made the necessary corrections. Just like the ministries and stat boards did when the AGO similarly found lapses in their accounting.

• Why did WP hide information from its own auditors?
- What information did WP “hide”?

• Why hasn’t the WP asked its friends in FMSS (FM Solution and Services) and FMSI (FM Solutions & Integrated Services), to whom they gave multi-million dollar contracts, to open their books for scrutiny?
- The contracts were awarded in open tenders. Why didn’t the PAP also asked AIM to do the same?

• Why hasn’t any independent auditor hired by the WP been prepared to issue clean, unqualified audit reports on the AHPETC accounts since WP took over AHPETC in 2011?
- Because the AHPETC were trying to square accounts after the handover. And AHPETC had even requested the MND to help in squaring these accounts. And the AGO, even after one whole year of investigations, were also unable to square some of the accounts which were handed over.

• Why is WP refusing MND’s offer to pay the Government grants to AHPETC on condition that an independent accountant safeguards the use of those funds, when WP’s own lawyers accept that the MND can impose conditions and the High Court found that MND’s conditions were reasonable?
- AHPETC already explained – this is because the MND wanted to appoint PriceWaterHouse as the external accountant. WP said PwC would present a conflict of interest because it had been involved with helping the AGO in its audit. NOTE: WP is not against appointing an external accountant per se.

• If WP claims to be transparent, why, as the High Court found, did its chairman Ms Sylvia Lim suppress facts and make a false statement to Parliament, and why did WP MP Pritam Singh say that he will not answer to Parliament?
- What “facts” did Sylvia Lim “suppress”, and what "false statement" is Hri Kumar referring to?

• Why has WP done nothing to determine whether any public funds are lost or misappropriated?
- The Ago had done a whole one-year audit and found no funds missing.