Tag: Singapore

Han Hui Hui: Malaysia Better Than Singapore, More Tolerant of Dissent

GEORGE TOWN, May 28 ― Malaysia is more tolerable of dissent compared to Singapore although Putrajaya barred entry to Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution activist Joshua Wong, Singaporean activist Han Hui Hui has said.

The 23-year-old, who is in Malaysia to give a series of talks on youth activism in remembrance of the bloody Tiananmen Square 1989 crackdown in China, said Singapore would not allow foreign speakers in for such talks.

“So speaking as a Singaporean, I feel Malaysia is still much better than Singapore because in Singapore, we are not allowed to invite foreigners to speak in the country unless they are going to praise the PAP government,” Han toldMalay Mail Online in an interview.

The youth activist pointed out that despite the deportation of Wong, who had planned to give the talks along with her in Malaysia, she was allowed to come here even though her event was not pro-government.

“In Singapore, even if you want to invite a Singaporean to speak, they want to know who it is before allowing the event,” Han said.

She said it was wrong and against human rights for Malaysia to expel Wong, but acknowledged the geopolitical ramifications surrounding the pro-democracy student leader’s presence here.

“It simply means China is a big power here and we can’t deny that,” she said.

Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar has described Wong as an “undesirable” person and said the activist was expelled Tuesday over concerns that the 18-year-old could risk Malaysia-China ties.

Wong is widely regarded as the impetus behind the 2014 mass protests in Hong Kong to demand the right to directly elect the head of the semi-autonomous administrative region. He was named amongTIME Magazine’s “Most Influential Teens of 2014”.

Han shared her experiences in organising “events”, albeit protests, in Singapore during her talk at the “Uprising of Youth and New Social Activism in Singapore and Hong Kong Forum” here Tuesday night.

“I wouldn’t call what I held in Singapore ‘protests’ but ‘events’ because we have not had any protests in the past 50 years and it is illegal,” she said.

Several street demonstrations have been organised in Malaysia, however, although the police have cracked down on mass rallies like the Bersih protests for free and fair elections. But some other rallies have been allowed to go on peacefully.

Han has been organising protests since 2013 over issues like the Singapore government’s alleged mishandling of the Central Provident Fund (CPF), which is the country’s retirement scheme, the education system and rising unemployment.

She, along with five others, was arrested in September last year for organising an illegal protest over the CPF issue and charged with causing a public nuisance.

Han told Malay Mail Online that her talks in Penang, Ipoh, Johor and Kuala Lumpur this week aimed to encourage millennials, or those born in the 1990s, to get involved in activism.

“We can’t be allowing those born in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s to continue to plan policies. They can’t plan out an education system that will fit the times. Ultimately, it is the people who had went (sic) through the system now and will know whether it is good or bad,” she said.

Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com

May 28, 2015
Wakaf: Hajjah Fatimah Mosque

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Philanthropist #2: Hajjah Fatimah
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Gazetted as a National Monument in 1973, Masjid Hajjah Fatimah is one of the mosques named after a woman. This is in recognition of the generosity of this wealthy tradeswoman, who contributed much to help the poor and needy in Singapore. She also generously built several houses around the area for the poor to reside.

Consistent with the spirit of perpetual giving in wakaf, she wanted her charitable acts to continue even after she had passed. Thus, Hajjah Fatimah made a bequest that upon her death, the income from the leased houses was to be used for the maintenance of the mosque. Hajjah Fatimah’s grave lies in a private enclosure within the mosque’s compound, together with her daughter, Raja Siti Kraeng Chanda Pulih and son-in-law, Syed Ahmad Bin Abdulrahman Alsagoff.

Source: MUIS

May 28, 2015
Cobbler Jailed And Caned For Raping 13 Year Old God-daughter

Terence Ng Kean Meng, 43, has been sentenced to 14 years’ jail and 14 strokes of the cane Wednesday (May 27) for two counts of raping a 13-year-old schoolgirl and sexually penetrating her with his finger.

Two other charges were taken into consideration. The victim cannot be named as she is a minor.

Ng, a divorcee who owns a makeshift cobbler stall near Commonwealth MRT, first noticed the victim when she was loitering near his stall in October 2013.

After finding out that she had run away from home, he offered to take care for her as her godfather. He even went to the victim’s house to convince her then-ill mother to let him take care of the schoolgirl.

Although Ng’s defence lawyer Subir Singh Grewal said that the relationship between Ng and the victim started out as a platonic one, the prosecution led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Vikneswaran S/O Kumaran accused Ng of developing an attraction for the victim and having sexual thoughts about her.

Ng then proceeded to have consensual sex with the victim three times in the next five weeks after they first met.

On one occasion, Ng brought the victim to his flat. After the victim complained of stomach problems, Ng placed some ointment on her stomach. After she said she was feeling better from the ointment, Ng asked her if she wanted to have sexual intercourse. She said yes, and he proceeded to insert his finger into her vagina.

In this instance, Ng committed digital penetration on a minor, which is a form of sexual penetration.

Shortly after the instances of consensual sex, the victim’s mother died and the 13-year-old confided about Ng’s actions to someone at school. She was told to file a police report, and Ng was arrested four days after she did so.

Under Section 375 of the Penal Code, any man who has sexual intercourse with a woman under 14 years of age is liable to be convicted with statutory rape, with or without the woman’s consent.

A psychiatric report by Dr Jason Lee Kim Huat found Ng to not be suffering from any mental illness or intellectual disability. However, Ng’s defence said that the accused only had Primary 6 educational qualifications.

Ng’s mother filed a statement, saying that he was filial and helped to provide for the family, although he had lacked proper education. She said a psychiatric evaluation when Ng was 7 years old revealed he was behind his peers in terms of physical and mental development. However, the family did not have enough money to help rehabilitate Ng.

The defence also argued that there was no report indicating that the accused had paedophilic tendencies or that the victim had suffered any psychological trauma.

Ng could have been jailed for up to 20 years and liable to a fine or caning for each charge of statutory rape with a girl under the age of 14.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

May 28, 2015
Residents Forced To Clean Common Areas, Query AHPETC Collection Of S&CC Charges

SINGAPORE — For more than seven months, the residents and the developer of a Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) project at Upper Serangoon Road had to clean and maintain the common areas themselves, because of an impasse involving the Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) and the Housing and Development Board (HDB) over maintenance documents.

Following discussions, the standstill at Parkland Residences was recently resolved and from next month, the town council will fulfil its duty to manage common property in public housing estates as stipulated under the Town Council Act.

However, as far as the residents and the developer are concerned, the matter is not fully resolved: Residents, several of whom had moved in as early as October last year, said that during that period, some of them continued to pay service and conservancy charges (S&CC), even though others had stopped paying as a matter of principle. Meanwhile, the developer, Kwan Hwee Investment, said it hopes to seek reimbursement for the expenses it had incurred for taking care of the common areas between November and this month.

The situation came to light after TODAY reader Julia Ng wrote to the newspaper last week about the problems she and her neighbours face at Parkland Residences.

Among other things, Ms Ng wrote about how residents were billed for the S&CC upon collecting their keys but “there were no subsequent reminders, and many of us have not been making payment”.

She added: “It did not seem required, since there was no maintenance as evidenced by the dirty corridors and surroundings, especially in the earlier months when many residents took it upon themselves to clean the corridors.”

Ms Ng said the residents understood that the development had not been handed over to the town council and that the S&CC “were collected on behalf of the HDB, which the latter denied”.

Replying to Ms Ng’s letter, HDB director (land administration) Koo-Lee Sook Chin clarified that the S&CC collected by AHPETC “are not collected on behalf of HDB”. She revealed that AHPETC had “refused to perform its duty until the developer handed over a list of documents and items specified by (the town council)”.

“HDB has clarified that these documents and items were not required for AHPETC to carry out its day-to-day cleaning and maintenance,” Mrs Koo-Lee said.

She added that as AHPETC had “refused to maintain the common areas”, the HDB asked the developer to clean the estate in the interim, “to ensure that the hygiene of residents’ living environment would not be compromised”. The developer has been cleaning the estate since Nov 12 last year, Mrs Koo-Lee said.

“Pending AHPETC’s execution of its duties to maintain the estate, HDB will work with the developer to ensure that the estate is maintained in the interim, for the benefit of all residents,” she said.

Speaking to TODAY, Mr Philip Tan, Kwan Hwee Investment’s project manager for Parkland Residences, confirmed that the AHPETC wanted HDB’s endorsement for maintenance documents — such as drawings of water supply and gas pipes and lift maintenance schedule — but the HDB disagreed.

Mr Tan said these documents are needed to assist a town council in taking over the maintenance of services. He added that the developer had deployed cleaners on a daily basis. “We hope to seek some form of reimbursements for the cleaning work that we have done since November,” he said.

Responding to TODAY’s queries, an AHPETC spokesman said the town council “agrees that there is room to improve the handover procedures between the developer, the HDB and the town council with regard to DBSS developments”. He added that the town council was “exercising its due diligence in the handover”. Nevertheless, the town council has since reviewed its internal process, he said.

The spokesman did not reply to questions on the S&CC, including which period was the AHPETC collecting the S&CC and what it intends to do with the S&CC collected. Residents at Parkland Residences said the situation has improved, but they recalled their frustrations in the initial months.

“There was a rat infestation at my block,” said resident Joyce Wong, 27. “The bins at the lift lobbies just started piling up because no one was clearing them. When residents complained, the developers took away the bins, but then we didn’t have anywhere to discard our rubbish at.”

Another resident, a homemaker who only wanted to be known as Mrs Chan, said: “We asked the HDB whether we should pay (S&CC), but they said they hadn’t handed over to the town council yet and were not collecting. When we approached the town council, they said they were collecting on behalf of HDB, but the HDB said they didn’t know anything.”

Human resource manager Sim Bee Lay, 39, said she has not paid the S&CC since she moved into her flat.

“We only received one letter and there were no reminders following that,” she added.

Source: www.todayonline.com

May 28, 2015
High Court Turns Down MND Request For Independent Accountants At WP-Run AHPETC

The High Court will not appoint independent accountants to oversee government grants to the Workers’ Party (WP)-run town council.

Justice Quentin Loh said that the Ministry of National Development (MND) has not established legal bases for its court application to appoint the accountants.

Despite the “grave and serious questions” raised over the state of accounts at Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC), the judge wrote that “when the Town Councils are set up, the whole idea is to rest the responsibility of the management of the funds as well as the estate with the Town Council.”

The Court therefore will not appoint independent accountants to oversee payments made by AHPETC.

MND had wanted independent accountants to sign off on AHPETC payments over $20,000 before it released several million in government grants to the town council.

But in his grounds of decision, released on Wednesday, Justice Loh said that it is a “travesty for AHPETC to have ignored their duties and obligations imposed on them by the Town Councils Act and Town Council Financial Rules.”

“They owe a duty and a heavy responsibility to their constituents to run AHPETC properly and it is incumbent on them to put their house and finances in order.”

“If AHPETC was a managing corporation … I have no doubt that AHPETC or its officers will be exposed to to the possibility of civil liability or, in an extreme scenario, criminal liability,” he added.

Justice Loh said that his decision should not stop the Housing Board or AHPETC residents from bringing legal action against AHPETC for the lapses.

In a two-day court hearing earlier this month, the MND said that questions remain over the cash flow position and accounting practices of AHPETC, which recently missed two sinking fund payments.

AHPETC said that it did not make those payments as it needed the funds to keep daily operations going.

MND has withheld two years of grants to AHPETC – a total of about $15 million – as it said it has no guarantee that those funds would be used properly.

On March 20, MND applied to the court to appoint independent accountants to AHPETC to safeguard government grants.

Earlier this year, serious accounting and governance lapses were discovered at AHPETC by the Auditor-General’s Office.

Commenting in the judgment on Wednesday night, AHPETC chairman Sylvia Lim, who is also WP chairman and an MP of Aljunied GRC, said: “We respect the court’s decision and will be studying the judgment in detail.

“In the meantime, we remain focused on filing our audited accounts for FY 13/14 and FY 14/15, and on continuing to improve our financial processes.”

Separately, the ministry noted in a statement that the Court agreed with its concerns about AHPETC.

A spokesman, citing the judgment, said: “The Court said there were ‘grave and serious questions’ that have been raised regarding the state of AHPETC’s accounts and the validity and propriety of payments previously made by AHPETC to related parties (amounting to $25.9 million), and that ‘there have also been numerous breaches of the provisions’ of the Town Councils Act and Town Councils Financial Rules. The Court added that the TC’s conduct was the height of financial irresponsibility.”

She added: “The judge also stated that if AHPETC was a managing corporation subject to the Building Maintenance and Strata Management Act, he would have no doubt that AHPETC or its officers will be exposed to the “possibility of civil liability… or, in an extreme scenario, criminal liability”.

“The Court added that it was a travesty for AHPETC to have ignored their duties and obligations. And that the TC was to be blamed for not accepting MND’s offer to release the grant.

“The Court said that HDB and residents could have brought the action, but not MND itself. The Court has also noted that MND can require the TC to appoint Independent Accountants (as a condition for release of grants), without having to get a court order.”

The spokesman added that MND will carefully study the judgment, and consider what its next steps should be.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 28, 2015