Singapore police rapped for financial lapses by Auditor-General
August 4th, 2010 | 
Author: The Singapore Police Force has been rapped for financial lapses in the latest report by the Auditor’s General’s Office (AGO) for the financial year ended March this year.
According to a Straits Times report, the police has been slow to seek payment from prosecuting agencies for each warrant of arrest amounting to losses in revenue amount to some $648,000 between 1997 and last year.
The police is required under the law to impose a fee of $25 for each warrant of arrest enforced by prosecuting agencies such as town councils and statutory boards for offences such as littering.
There were also lapses in maintenance contracts worth $2.6 million dollars for surveillance camera systems of which the police did not bother to impose liquidated damages on two contractors who failed to deliver the services provided.
The names of the contractors were not revealed. There were no immediate comments from the Singapore police force which has come under intense public scrutiny lately.
Unlike other developed countries, Singapore has no independent Public Complaints bureau to check on the police which wields tremendous power over the citizenry.
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Posted in Editorial
The financial lapses in the different ministries are small matter. Wait until AGO audits Temasick and GIC. Maybe more that 75% of our country wealth are already gone.
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Good for Nothing.
Wasting Tax Payer’s Money.
The security Guard can do a better job.
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“Singapore police rapped for financial lapses by Auditor-General”
I have to disagree with the title. I think it is the government trying hard to find money to fill in the gaps of their mega children sports day.
If they are serious about punishing the SPF, someone from up there would have to take the rap and resign or get fired.
Well in another perspective, if the Singapore Police Force is so screwed up and cant even track their records/ finance properly, it means that their ministers probably dont deserve the top notch salary.
Get off that throne please.
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So now they give us “accountability”. Now shut up, sit down and move on. Give them the “strong” mandate and they can carry on with their “business”.
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I think this is another wayang.
Is anyone auditing Temasek losses?
Is anyone questioning YOG cost overrun?
Is anyone resigning or getting sacked over these laoses?
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The Patriot:
August 4, 2010 at 10:07 am
The financial lapses in the different ministries are small matter. Wait until AGO audits Temasick and GIC. Maybe more that 75% of our country wealth are already gone.
I bet you can see another suharto or marcos saga happening here in sg, the only difference is ours handles 10x more than those in indo and philippine combined.
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Next year, let’s see what the AGO will say about the YOG budget being more than 2.5x overspent. It is easy to highlight some small fishes (not even $1m a year) in order to wayang checks are in place, but what’s when hundreds of millions or even billions vapourised (over 12 days or over a couple of weeks/months, etc..)?
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Can the Auditor General investigates both, GIC and Temasek Holdings for financial lapses?
Since our President is so useless, How about accountability for our Nation’s Reserves?
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Alamak… this gap can easily be filled back if Wong KS just take 1 mth unpaid leave. When he is on leave, good time to audit his area to see if anything has changed since Mas Selamat & MRT fiascos. By election time, Wong can’t sing but he may have to learn to cry.
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Another oversight failure from the Home Minister on his subordinate agencies ?
It seems that as Singapore gets wealthier, it has given license to the various government departments and agencies to get soft in the head, and tolerate a high level of failure.
With at least five Ministers – with and without portfolio – in the Prime Minister’s Office, and with each Ministerial postion having a Second Minister and a Minister of State – it is amazing that the Pro Alien Party will appoint so many of their own nominees to be office bearers, but will not exercise any oversight over them.
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Maybe the Auditor General should hold the other key to Singapore’s National Reserves.
At 83 years old, the President maybe is too old to handle the key.
The President is ever ready to surrender his key to PM so easily, so, my suggestion is that the Auditor General should ask the President to hand the key over to them for safe keeping.
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Every year the Auditor General uncovered many financial lapses. Every year, the same lapses are repeated. So what’s the point when there is no accountability?
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Hi Auditor General, did Wong KS receive his bonus and pay increment last year for letting Mat escape his prison thru a toilet???? I think majority of Singaporean don’t think he deserved any increment and bonuses for his dismayed performance.
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Hmm, isn’t there a CPIB to take errant police officers to task? Why do we need to have another “Public Complaints bureau” set up? End of the day, who pay for the salary of the officers sitting inside this “Public Complaints bureau”? Who is going to guarantee that this “Public Complaints bureau” is going to be “truly” independent? If cannot guarentee that “Public Complaints bureau” is not independent, do we need to set up another audit bureau to check on this “Public Complaints bureau”? Then, who to guarentee that this audit bureau is truly independent? If cannot guarentee, do we need to set up another monitor agency to ensure that the audit bureau is independent? Okay, next, how to we make sure that this monitor agency is truly independent? If cannot make sure, do we have to set up a police unit to make sure that the monitor agency is independent? Not, let’s talk about this police unit, wait, don’t we already have one?
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Wow! this report from the Auditor-General has come at the right time, when our Minister WKS just delivered a lecture on ‘integrity’ to the citizens!!
What ‘integrity’ is he talking about when his own HOME is full of messy
skeletons??
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Failure to chase after debtors? Are these really the financial lapses that we should look at? What about budget overruns, invoice disparities, missing drugs…etc. Police force is dodgy.
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On the 648K, the AGO has no other better work to do but to go after this essentially right pocket and left pocket kind of nonsense.
Broadly speaking in corporate speak, we call it inter-company funding. All it takes is just one instruction from the CEO to make good.
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No head will roll. As all “kakee lan”! But then since kakee lan this time is not pap party member must be like us “lesserer mortalerers” can be replaced by FT right? So why cannot put FT in charge lar? Laugh HOW Loud lor. Ooooops solly lah, it’s Who Kenna Sai again leh?
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Walao eh, ONLY $648,000 nia why cry father cry mother? Not enough for WKS to even go for a holiday in China lor.
Better pay more attention to GIC and TH mah, dio bo?
BUT THEN I just remember lor, AGO has NO POWER to audit GIC and TH lor, their accounts audited by an ‘independant’ team of accountants with each auditing ONLY a particular section so no one except the one on TOP have the full picture lor.
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@Forecaster Extraordinarie II:
alamak,.. amount more than one peanut, of course kao peh kao bu, if less than one peanut, sure diam diam no noise one…
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for all the years of near perfect results generated by both the Police Force and Its top man, Mr Wong K S, are these comments necessary and need it be published.
They are the best in what are expected to do, achiving global standards. I’m sure they’ll not only recover these losses but fair much better in the next audit.
Is the GIC and TH the only ones too suffer from the global crunch. Read more and you’ll know just how many finacial houses collapsed. Our dollar is still strong and we are still standing. So cut the crab and stop disreputing our leaders, especially when they respected throughout the globe.
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Can we then have transparency as to what happens next ?? And what actions will be taken, and whose responsibility it is AND HOW WE WILL BE PAID BACK FOR ALL OUT HARD EARNED TAX dollars?? What really bugs me is the consistent mismanagement of money. Can anyone please give me back my money including the money that they overestimated in for the YOG what from 100 mill to 300++ million? What is that supposed to mean? Can the auditors MAKE sure it is well spent? Accounting for it is EASY. Well spent is a political opinion. And I DON’T agree.
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Can the we all please take up the YOG budget issue? Which political brain/s overestimated the budget number? I am sure accounting for money is easy, but MAKING SURE it is well spent is another matter.. how can anyone just explain away a budget that explodes several times in the case of YOG? For your information, all the projects tendered out are in the government business website, but who is it that justifies that the projects are actually required? I suggest that some one looks at the projects published and review how each has progessed against the money spent. An INDEPENDENT body must be set up, and one that is NOT UNDER Government control.
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In Singapore if you owe govt $10 you can be arrested, put in handcuffs and thrown in jail.
But if you’re senior civil servant, you can lose millions of dollars, forget to collect another millions of dollars, and you still get your $15,000/month salary, 6 months bonus, 28 days leave, special perks like free health checks and 5-star hotel dinner treats, and promotion every 2-3 years.
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As for Mas Selamat ~ an issue that really peeves everyone ~ Does anyone recall in that the Straits Times reported that according to the Malaysian police they said, “We knew the moment he landed…” and they had been tracking him for a long time. NOW doesn’t that reflect somewhat badly and sadly on Singapore? Watching him “the moment he landed” .. they said… and we were still searching, roadblocking ourselves silly, making political speeches about how committed we are to finding him (all in the wrong places..) So what are we paying home affairs for? and paying for all the other resources and manpower used during those harrowing months? Why are not learning from our mistakes? Now we are seeing more money burned away by acts that were performed or acts that failed to be performed, and BY THE SAME MINISTRY, ~ ~~ I mean what sort of management do we have here? ~ !!
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In many countries, Wong Kan Seng would have had to resign. In Japan, he may have to commit harakiri.
Only in Singapore can he strut around, talk cock, scold Singaporeans and still take home his S$3 Million annual pay and enjoy all the perks and conveniences that the Government accords him.
But still as I said, we deserve him as much as he deserves us. We voted for him, didn’t we?
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Alamak!This is not about lapses per se.
This is just to make it easier for the police to get payments from citizens.
Sounds nice only.
I ma sure there are more serious lapses to oin down.
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I am disgusted at how Temasek Review refused to state that other organisations such as Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Finance etc. were also audited and lapses were also found. TR only mentioned SPF in order to demean the public’s impression of SPF. Targetting SPF or something? Take a look:
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100804-0000083/Auditor-General-takes-some-ministries-to-task
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On 10 September 2010 while flying over the Raffles City Shopping Centre, I saw Dr Chee Soon Juan, Ms Chee Siok Chin and Gandhi Ambalan arrested by the police for distributing pamphlets criticising the PAP Government by questioning the ministers’ salaries as well as the denial of political rights to Singaporeans.
Subsequently, District Judge Ch’ng Lye Beng found Mr Gandhi Ambalam, Dr Chee Soon Juan and Ms Chee Siok Chin guilty of distributing pamphlets and fined the three SDP leaders the maximum amount of $1,000 each with one week’s jail in default.
Judge Ch’ng most probably slanted towards favouring the ruling party expectedly gave incoherent reasons for his verdict.
The SDP leaders argued in court in vain that the Miscellaneous Offences Act under which they have been charged has been abused by the police to target and criminalise legitimate political activity conducted by the opposition.
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Stop the waynag. YOG wasted 100 years of SPF losses. Do not make distrust bt SPF and people. Auditor got nothing else to do and bully the weak SPF? Remember our SPF are mostly the sons and daughter of those struggle with life as well. Wrong target mate.
Target the big spending spree in YOG.
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AG only interested in collection of money. So they blamed SPF for slow or failure in collecting money and not other things.
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Dear All,
This goes to show that there is accountability in the government, unlike what is promulgated here. Thus there is no need nfor opposition to act as check and balance.
All of you should have faith and trust in our civil service, especially office like the AGO.
We had already given you the accountability and check and balance. What else more do you want????
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Awaruke:
August 4, 2010 at 4:03 pm
y r u so disgusted. would u be disgusted after all that is revealed in the mainstream media, no person is held accountable excepting only the faceless depts.
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Well, Kong Ming will be proud of them. Using distraction to divert attention from the more important area…do they think s’poreans are that daft?
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Big fish will eat the small fish unnecessary fault finding and wil bring the morale of workers
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What a freak nonsense the lackey dog is talking about ?
They make it sound as though it is worst than TH and GIC run by the emperor and his family.
“According to a Straits Times report, the police has been slow to seek payment from prosecuting agencies for each warrant of arrest amounting to losses in revenue amount to some $648,000 between 1997 and last year.”
Under what circumstances above is that the police fail to get payment ? Is the people been poor to pay those payment. Whatever to those payment endup to ? The clown’s pocket ?
“There were also lapses in maintenance contracts worth $2.6 million dollars for surveillance camera systems of which the police did not bother to impose liquidated damages on two contractors who failed to deliver the services provided.”
What maintenance contracts ? Mean those fake surveillance camera install in HDB to give a sense of fake security ?
As many say here, the real mccoy is the TH and GIC, and how is it that they are not audited as main priority ?
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how is the f@$ck of few millions lost by certain gov agency compare to hundred of billions loss of state asset by TH and GIC together ? Wow.. so convenient to find tiny scapegoat to divert attention to give the impression that they are doing audit when in fact they are just wayanging with small fly ???
Who’s the hell they are trying to kid ?
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Deceive the heavens to cross the ocean (瞞天過海／瞒天过海, Mán tiān guò hǎi)
Prepare too much and you lose sight of the big picture; what you see often you do not doubt. Yin (the art of deception) is in Yang (acting in open). Too much Yang (transparency) hides Yin (true ruses).
This stratagem references an episode in 643 AD, when Tang emperor Tang Gaozong Li Shimin, baulked from crossing the sea to a campaign against Koguryo. His General Xue Rengui thought of a stratagem to get the Emperor across and allay his fear of seasickness: on a clear day, the Emperor was invited to meet a wise man. They entered through a dark tunnel into a hall where they feasted. After feasting several days, the Emperor heard the sound of waves and realised that he had been lured onto a ship! General Xue drew aside the curtains to reveal the ocean and confessed that they had already crossed the sea: Upon discovering this, the emperor decided to carry on and later completed the successful campaign.
This stratagem means that you can mask your real goals, by using the ruse of a fake goal that everyone takes for granted, until the real goal is achieved. Tactically, this is known as an ‘open feint’; in front of everyone, you point west, when your goal is actually in the east. By the time everyone realised it, you have already achieved your goal. Harro von Senger notes in the German-Language “Die Liste” that to grasp the full meaning, it would be something like “to deceive the holy virgin Mary” in the West.
This stratagem makes use of the human failing to become unaware of common everyday activities, or events that appear normal. The best secrets are carried out in broad daylight. The best hoax is to repeat it so often that people are convinced that the next move is also a hoax. When this happens, it is the best moment to carry out one’s previously hidden true objective.
The above are From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Stratagems
Auditor-General reports a feint…now what are real stuff they are trying to hide?
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I find it quite uncanny that any mistake committed by the Police sure get whack by TR. This audit report also feature other agencies what, but how come TR only zoom in on Police? Why, the editor or TR owner got axe to grind with police is it?
Please la. I served my NS in the Police. I see those regulars and NSF work their pants off on killer shifts. Those IO almost stay in office type – seems like nobody cares or even concern, but complain very chop chop. And when shit happen, the very people whom these people strain to protect whack them left, right, center.
Cut these people some slack. They boycott one day, and very soon you will see your sisters get raped, your house get robbed, no one to catch your pythons or chase away drunk Bangla from your void deck.
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Can anyone or anybody explain to me how come these Auditor-General rap about such “HUGE” waste of funds ($10000 to less than $400000) from these organizations when our million $$$ ministers can allow
1) Million $$$ floods to occur
2) Billion $$$ investment losses to be forgiven
3) Security breaches to take place / limping terrorist to escape
? ? ?
Hmmmmm maybe those losses are only “PEANUTS”…..to these Auditor-Generals
?????????
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Auditor-General <- Wah a waste of tax payers monies!!!
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What ? I swear, They just don’t get it! The boarder is not the main problem.Its good to get extra funding but how about insted of spending 600 million lets save 100 billion and stop paying for illegals to be here!!! Don’t give them a reason to come over and the illegal population will drop by 3/4, the border can then be secured with what we already have. California spends 10.5 billion on the care of illegals, over half of the bugdet gap. And now they talk making them all legal for free, the flow across the boarder will ony grow larger. In my country they would cut your feet off if you crossed the boarder not pay you
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