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SINGAPORE: All municipalities had unqualified financial statements for fiscal year 2019, the Ministry of National Development (MND) said on Monday (March 15).
An unqualified financial statement indicates that the report provides an accurate view of the financial affairs of the organization.
MND said in a statement that it has submitted to Parliament the audited financial statements for the 2019 fiscal year of the 16 city councils prior to the 2020 general elections. MND has also released the April 2019 City Council Management Reports (TCMR) from 2019 to March 2020.
There was a delay in filing and releasing the results of the Fiscal Year 2019 City Council Management Report due to the “circuit breaker” period in 2020, the ministry said.
In the management report, the municipalities are evaluated according to five indicators, using three color bands: green, amber and red. The five areas are farm cleaning, farm maintenance, elevator performance, management of Service and Conservation Charges (S&CC) arrears, and corporate governance.
“The TCMR results for fiscal year 2019 are comparable to previous years, with improvements seen in the area of property cleaning,” said MND.
Thirteen municipalities received the “Green” classification in the five indicators.
For property cleanliness, all town halls were marked “Green” as there were fewer than four counts of cleanliness observations per block on average.
They all also had green bands to improve lift performance. This means that there were less than two breakdowns per month for every 10 lifts managed by municipalities, and the breakdown rate for ARD (Automatic Rescue Device) lifts was zero.
The ARD moves the elevator car to the nearest elevator landing during a power outage.
WHERE THE CITY COUNCILS SCORED AMBER
The municipalities of Aljunied-Hougang and Tampines were labeled “Amber” for the maintenance of the property and the rest were “Green”.
Townships that had fewer than four maintenance observation counts per block were rated “Green”, while municipalities that had four to fewer than eight maintenance observations per block on average were marked “Amber.
The Chua Chu Kang municipality received the “Amber” label for the management of arrears from S&CC, while the other 15 municipalities received the “Green” label.
To be in the green band, the monthly S&CC overdue must be less than 40 percent and fewer than four out of 100 households must have arrears of three months or more.
The Chua Chu Kang city council was named “Amber” as it had between 40% and less than 50% of the monthly S&CC collectible for the expiring city. Households that were in arrears for three months or more were held in fewer than four out of 100 households.
Fifteen city councils received the “Green” label for corporate governance, while the Tampines city council received the “Amber” label due to a charge of non-compliance with the City Council’s Financial Rules.
The Tampines city council had insufficiently transferred the amount due to subsidence and uplift replacement funds during a quarter due to a miscalculation. It corrected the shortfall in the next quarterly transfer, MND said.
Source: Ministry of National Development.
MND said that it has suspended the evaluation of the fiscal year 2020 management report for city councils and that it will not publish a report for the period from April 2020 to March 2021.
“This is due to the disruption that city councils faced during the breaker period, as well as changes in city councils after GE2020 in July last year,” the ministry said.
“The suspension also allows for clear accountability of the results when the TCMR assessment resumes from fiscal year 2021 (as of April 2021).”
Beginning in fiscal year 2021, MND will publish the Town Hall Management Report in two reports: one covering operational indicators (farm cleanliness, farm maintenance, elevator performance, and S&CC arrears management) to be published in May or June of each year, and another that will cover corporate governance. indicator that will be published in November or December of each year.
They will be based on the new areas of the city after GE2020, covering 17 city councils for the period from April 2021 to March 2022.
