Independent Panel initiates legal action against Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh

The independent panel, tasked with looking into improper payments made by AHTC has taken legal action against WP's chief Low Thia Khiang, chairman of AHTC Pritam Singh and vice-chairman Sylvia Lim. 

The writ of summons was filed last Friday by the town council in the High Court, over a breach of fiduciary duties.

Besides the three Aljunied GRC MPs, other defendants named are: Mr Chua Zhi Hon, a former member of the WP Youth Wing executive committee; Mr Kenneth Foo, deputy organising secretary of the WP and WP candidate in Nee Soon GRC in the 2015 General Election; Ms How Weng Fan, owner of the town council's former managing agent firm FM Solutions and Services (FMSS); and FMSS.

A pre-trial conference date of Aug 31 has been listed.

Last year, the Housing Board had asked AHTC to appoint a third party to recover the improper payments made from town council funds.

The independent panel, appointed in February this year, is chaired by senior counsel Philip Jeyaretnam, and comprises senior counsel N. Sreenivasan and KPMG managing partner Ong Pang Thye.

The independent panel has the power to commence legal action on behalf of the town council for overpayments and payments without proper certification of work being done, among others. This can include mediation, arbitration and other court proceedings.

Besides this case, AHTC also filed another writ of summons in the High Court against FMSS last Friday.

This was in relation to an arbitration case over a financial dispute emerging from the lapses at the town council.

In a report last year, audit firm KPMG found that governance lapses at AHTC between 2011 and 2015 had put public funds running into millions of dollars at risk of improper use.

It traced some of the improper payments to AHTC's then managing agent FMSS.

Ms How and her late husband, Mr Danny Loh, were owners of FMSS and held key management and financial control positions in the town council at the same time.

This meant they effectively approved and made payments to themselves when they paid FMSS, the KPMG report found. It also raised the possibility of civil and criminal liabilities.

The report was part of the ongoing audit of AHTC following lapses flagged by its own auditors as well as by the Auditor-General's Office in a special report in February 2015.