$22.5 million in sinking funds to be transferred to Punggol East in instalments
The Workers’ Party (WP) responded on 18 April to comments made by Punggol East Member of Parliament (MP) Charles Chong regarding the transfer of sinking funds from the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) run by the WP.
Chairman of the AHTC Pritam Singh took issue with Mr Chong’s comments and also detailed how the AHTC planned to hand over the funds back to the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council (PRPTC).Comments 7,815
Mr Chong had stated last week that only an “interim amount” of $10 million out of $22.5 million in sinking funds had been transferred back to the PRPTC from AHTC, after the WP lost the Punggol East constituency to the PAP in last year’s General Election.
The funds are due to be transferred back to PRPTC due to the granting of the $22.5 million to the WP’s Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) after WP won Punggol East in an earlier by-election in 2013.
Mr Singh said in the statement that Mr Chong’s comment that the $22.5 million was transferred to AHPETC in 2013 is “factually incorrect” as payments were still being made to the AHPETC in 2014. After the 2013 by-election, PRPTC had transferred sinking funds in instalments starting with $10 million in 2013, with the final instalment transferred in September 2014. Mr Singh highlighted that this final transfer was done approximately 20 months after the 2013 by-election.
“Mr Chong’s comment that only an interim amount of $10m has been transferred so far is odd, in view of the sequence of interim sinking fund transfers for Punggol East SMC undertaken by PRPTC in 2013 and 2014,” said Mr Singh.
For the ongoing transfer of the sinking funds from AHTC to PRPTC, Mr Singh states that the AHTC plans to hand over all the funds in instalments, similar to the process in 2013 and 2014. The AHTC will account for any expenditure on Punggol East SMC from 1 May 2013 to 30 November 2015 and will then transfer the funds to PRPTC.