Sharp exchange breaks out over AGO audits of government bodies

SINGAPORE — A terse exchange broke out today (Feb 13) during the debate on the audit report of Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) between Workers’ Party Member of Parliament (MP) Png Eng Huat and Senior Minister of State (Finance and Transport) Josephine Teo after the former brought up the fact that annual audits by the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) on government ministries and statutory boards had also uncovered accounting lapses.

Mrs Teo challenged Mr Png to cite examples where the AGO had reached the same conclusion in its routine audits of the ministries and statutory boards as in its audit of AHPETC. In response, Mr Png insisted that he did not mean to compare the routine audits to the AGO report on the town council.

The AGO had concluded in its report on AHPETC that “until the weaknesses are addressed, there can be no assurance that AHPETC’s accounts are accurate and reliable or that public funds are properly spent, accounted for and managed”.

In his speech, Mr Png, who is MP for Hougang and a vice-chairman of AHPETC, said: “Over the years, the AGO has found said instances of over-payments, payments without evidence that goods and services were delivered, duplicate payments ... in many ministries and organs of states it audited.”

Among other lapses, Mr Png noted that, for example, one agency was found to have called for a quotation instead of a tender for a project that exceeded S$70,000 in the AGO report for financial year 2010/2011. Also, the AGO found that 10 statutory boards did not present their FY2006/07 annual reports to Parliament within the six-month time frame and three of these boards had also been late for the previous two years.

“One of them did not even present its audited financial statements to Parliament for the previous two financial years,” he said. Alluding to comments made by National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Thursday, Mr Png added: “Some of these lapses were small in financial value, while others were serious and the list goes on. Like what the ministers said today, in some country, the CEO would take a deep bow, apologise and resign, but I guess this is not in our culture.”

While AHPETC was found to have “erred in some of these areas”, he said he was certain that the town council “will not be the last as well because good corporate governance is a work in progress”.

“The Workers’ Party takes the AGO findings very seriously,” he said.

“We have acknowledged our shortcomings in certain areas as well as defended our actions in others. On any other given day, this report may read like a typical AGO report on any entity under audit, but today the spotlight is on AHPETC and we will explain the issues to the public.”

When Mr Png ended his speech, Mrs Teo immediately took issue with his remarks and asked Mr Png to cite routine audits which had a similar conclusion as the report on AHPETC.

In response, Mr Png said: “I drew (on examples) of AGO reports (on the ministries and statutory boards) because I read them every year, it’s not meant to be a comparison with AHPETC’s AGO report.” He added: “The conclusion that AHPETC got from AGO ... is unique, yes, we accepted it. But those examples that I cited are things that the AGO picked up too. Isn’t that real? Are those not real instances where lapses happened too?”

Mrs Teo pointed out that the ministries and statutory boards have to account for any lapses discovered by the AGO and the annual reports are tabled in Parliament. She also questioned
AHPETC’s attitude in the way it responded to the AGO during the audit, noting that it was “very different” to the manner in which the government organisations respond to the Public Accounts Committee made up of MPs who scrutinise the routine reports.