Auditor-General Lim Soo Ping, just submitted his audit report for financial year 2008/09 to the President and Parliament on 1 July, and later released it on the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) website.
The full report can be viewed here. I read through all 62 pages of it, and had a few observations.
The purpose of this report, like all audit reports, is to point out audit points in the various ministries and statutory boards. It is not every day that Singaporeans read of such a high ranking official pointing out so many faults in so many government agencies. But that is the Auditor-General’s job. I trust he has done a thorough job and highlighted all the key audit points without fear or favour, and without obfuscating any critical ones for fear of political backlash.
Most of the audit points highlighted were due to civil servants taking short cuts to expedite procurement processes, rather than because of blatant dishonesty or corruption. I suppose the latter would have been dealt with by CPIB and the Courts, and not the A-G in his report. But given the amount of bureaucracy that civil servants have to go through to get even a simple job done, I can see why some of them attempt to take short cuts. This is not to excuse their lack of adherance to the rules, but I think some of such lapses must be seen in this context. It is not fair for the media or casual observers to blast all civil servants and call for heads to roll.
In some cases, we observers (but of course not the A-G) should also consider the cost of not taking short cuts and delaying an important project. For example, one stat board was rapped for, among other things, changing the scope of a tender and not calling for a fresh tender. To publish an open tender often requires months of preparation and internal approvals. If the agency were to call for a fresh tender instead of just publishing a corrigendum, the project could be delayed for months.
Again, I’m not excusing sloppiness or dishonesty by our public servants. But as a former civil servant, I can attest to the bureaucratic headache that many of them go through. It is something that most of us in the private sector seldom face.
One chairman, many offices
There was one audit point, though, which caught my eye.
SPRING Singapore renovated its chairman’s office in Bukit Merah in early 2007 before the appointment of its new chairman, Philip Yeo, on 1 April 2007. But Mr Yeo continued to work at his old office in A*Star at Biopolis, where he had been the chairman. As a result, not only has his new office in Bukit Merah been left unoccupied since April 2007, but SPRING had to pay rental for 17 months for the Biopolis office, presumably to A*Star.
In June 2008, Mr Yeo moved out of his Biopolis office, and SPRING renovated and leased an entire floor of a building at Fusionopolis (a building near Biopolis) for his office, and extra “satellite” offices for the CEO and Deputy CEO, and others.
The total cost of the rental of the Biopolis office, and the renovation and rental of the new floor at Fusionopolis until June 2010, cost SPRING almost $2 million. But the bleed doesn’t end there. The entire SPRING is moving to Fusionopolis in 2010, and the construction of another office for the Chairman is currently underway.
It is no secret that Mr Yeo was the one who pushed hard for SPRING to be relocated to Fusionopolis, to “help bring Growing Enterprises to A*STAR’s incubator facilities”. He perhaps felt that working near A*Star was more conducive for him and his executive team. But in doing so, he may have cost taxpayers over $2.8 million (assuming that the new office in Fusionopolis will also cost over $800,000). That money could have been used to fund dozens of grants to SMEs and entrepreneurs.
This whole episode sounds very similar to another story I read in the book, From Third World to First. In his memoirs, Mr Lee Kuan Yew related what happened when Mr Goh Chok Tong took over as Prime Minister in 1990. He wrote: “Chok Tong did not want to move into my old office in Istana Annexe, which I had occupied for 20 years since I moved from City Hall, but chose to create a new office on the floor above mine.”
Retired senior civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow gave a frank interview in 2003 where he said: “There is also a particular brand of Singapore elite arrogance creeping in. Some civil servants behave like they have a mandate from the emperor. We think we are little Lee Kuan Yews.“
Little Lee Kuan Yew indeed.
Sharp observations made. Will somebody pls raise this in parliament for open discussion lest it would be thought that $2.8M is ‘P******’. This is the job for the opp party and even the NMPs to quickly latch on because it is startling and little does the public know abt it. Before it becomes water under the bridge and that negative mindset you mentioned slowly becomes entrenched…
No surprise our elite is behaving no diferent from John Thein.
Who is John Thein ? He is the best friend of Temasek Holding after all who is so kind to give him money to buy expensive dustbin.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28793175/
Now back to Yeo, anyone check his new office for golden tap ?
FYI rental for Biopolis and Fusionopolis goes to JTC, not A*Star.
And I’m not sure if the rental really constitutes a loss to taxpayers. If he hadn’t rented the office, would JTC have been able to rent the office to a firm from the private sector? If not, then it’s merely a case of tax revenue being transferred from SPRING to JTC.
What PY has done at SPRING/Biopolis/Fusionpolis is no different from what he has been doing throughout his civil service career starting at MINDEF.
If the AG has the will and resources to trace PY’s career, it will find a trail of such extravagant, wasteful, unjustifiable, questionable expenditures. You see the man firmly believes in not sparing any cost to provide the best for his people and his endeavours. He figure that is the cost govt must pay for his service. It is good to work for him and be in his good books. But woe betides you should you ever cross his path! Many an arrogant and reckless civil servant, including talents has had found it to his cost and undoing. But basically, the man has guts.
twasher – thanks for clarifying about rental going to JTC. I don’t see JTC as a govt agency in the traditional sense. It’s more like a profit-making GLC. They had $1.2 billion in profits (surplus) in 2008. Does this go to fund Workfare? I don’t think so. So I don’t agree that the payment to JTC can be considered to be feeding back into the govt coffers.
In any case, this is beside the point. I have no doubt that PY would have done exactly the same thing if the landlord was Mapletree or Capitaland.
Yes, I agree that PY has a habit of spending recklessly. Another example being the overseas PhD scholarship scheme that he is so proud of.