town council brings you to court
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i was charged by court for not makin payments on town council.. due to financial burden that i am facing right now, town council charge me of $1315 (plus the legal/penalties/and watever charge) to me.. i went to appeal to get for the instalment payment, but no, they reject it as i need to pay full amount in order for them to retrieve my name from court.. then to cut the story short, warrant of arrest issued to me because of not paying the town council... where is the justification ??? am I a criminal by law in spore for not paying town council??????
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Town Council took unemployed man to court for S&C arrears
Jalan Besar Town Council had took an unemployed man to court for arrears S&C arrears of $432!
In a letter written to the Straits Times Forum, Mr Lim Beo Thiam, a 52 year old who has been unemployed for 18 months and lost part of a leg through diabetes relates his unhappy experience with his Town Council. (read letter here)
He claimed that this is the first time he did not pay the S&C charges due to financial difficulties and he was taken to court by Jalan Besar Town Council.
His new debts now ballooned to more than $1,000 which included court penalties and late payment charges.
“When I tried to settle subsequent S&C charges to avoid a fresh spiral of hefty penalties for non-payment, I was rejected. The town council ruled that I had to settle the old debt before I could pay the new charges. Naturally, this led to more penalties as my fresh S&C arrears spiked. So, I am now some $3,000 in debt to my town council,” he added.
Mr Lim wrote that he has appealed to his Member of Parliament for help many times but the final reply invariably remained unchanged: pay up.
He lampooned the Town Councils for hoarding extra revenue collected instead of helping needy residents like himself:
“Town councils shouldn’t be surprised if residents like myself, who face tough times, wonder why we aren’t being helped via the excess revenue collected; revenue which is instead ploughed into loss-making investments. Shouldn’t any excess revenue be refunded to residents via rebates? If town councils are keen to invest, set up a fund offering soft loans to residents to tide them over tough times and pay service and conservancy charges.”
His letter attracted a fresh barrage of criticisms at the government with many netizens expressing their support and sympathy for him.
Wrote between777:
“seems the govt is pushing the buck and trying to get town councils to make more money as it focuses even on getting town councils to recover arrears – which in these times, there are a fair number who cant barely afford to pay – but yet this is on the agenda – whereas Investments by town councils are NOT graded – and this is especially impt bec the town councils LOST some nearly $20 million in the lehman fiasco! And the govt can spent $100 million just to host a 3-day APEC Summit! which is more to a ego trip – as in all honesty such APEC or even ASEAN have all along been making alot of talk but never walk their talk – and in fact even within ASEAN there are many issues yet to be even worked on and the many barriers to free trade within the group.”
Added anlibeth2000:
“Having a report card to monitor the town council’s performance is a good ideal but collecting of the outstanding arrears is otherwise. Whoever owes the town council are likely to be the poor of the poor. Fancy writing off 16 millions in lost of investment and here they are squeezing your poor citizen till the last drop of blood. Not only that , if for any reason you happen to owe them they will impose penalties, late payment charges, court charges, so that they are quite similar to the loan shark charges.
12 months outstanding of $36 x 12 = $432. Penalties $561 plus $50 legal fees. Total to claim $1043. If these don’t work they will get a court action to seize your household items until you have nowhere to run. Yes I had personally experienced it. Forget about seeking your MP’s help because they are of the same office. (N/B The MP take charges of the town council) After auctioning your item that will not be enough they will start the proceduring all over again. One would have been better off if they borrowed from a loan shark to pay them off. However the SPF had cleared a lot from their business and seeking a loan shark is not easy nowaday.”
iamgoondu wants the Town Councils to accout for the fees collected and sent:
“I doubt that there are residents would want to assess their town councils based on the arrears collections. We are more interested in the fees collected and spent (dollars and cents). If Holland-Bukit Timah TC can afford to lose big in their investments, they should be capable to waive the arrears as well.”Stevewu77 wondered why S&C penalities are so high:“Why should the S&C penalties be so high in these times of need when the bank interest rates are at rock bottom levels. I have personally witnessed the large number of residents taken to night court to recover the S&C charges. Surely, the majority must have been hardship cases and they must be addressed sensibly. Mr Lim’s letter is a poignant reminder that the policy failure at the town councils has already caused irreparable sufferings.This situation becomes even more unthinkable when the People realize the huge reserves that the town councils have amassed, enough to write off large investment losses. It means that the town councils have collected too much S&C fees. Where is the promise by the MND to address accountability in the aftermath of the investment fiasco now? The People are not so forgetful.
I challenge the town councils to provide more complete statistics on this matter. Maybe then, the PAP government shall be less quick to proclaim the job credit scheme a success when it is obviously NOT and faces squarely the root issue, i.e. the structural unemployment problem which has escalated over the years.”
2009Lembut gave a sarcastic reply to the writer:“Mr Lim, after this letter is publish, you can expect a swift response from the town council. The reaction is typically defensive. They will probably state how they had tried to help but you were not coorperative or that you have not come clean on some of the points……..”While the Town Councils are taking poor and needy Singapore citizens to court for S&C arrears, the PAP constituencies are splurging money to make the new citizens and PRs feel welcomed including organizing HDB tea parties, treasure hunts and offering free language courses to them. A $10 million community fund will be set up at taxpayers’ expense to help the newcomers “integrate”.Though the PAP town councils had lost more than $10 million in credit-linked investments last year, they claim it is only a small percentage their total sinking funds. In fact, investments will not even be featured as an indicator of their performance meaning that they will not be held accountable for further losses.Listing S&C arrears as one of the criteria for good performance will only motivate the Town Councils to go after residents who are unable to pay the S&C charges due to financial reasons. Since the Town Councils have millions in reserves, why waive off the arrears altogether? After all, the arrears are “peanuts” compared to the millions of dollars they have lost so far. -
Aljunied Town Council – Taking the easy way out?
Posted by theonlinecitizen on May 7, 2008
Leong Sze Hian & Andrew Loh
All 14 town councils run by the People’s Action Party (PAP) will not be increasing their Service and Conservancy (S&C) charges this year.
- Channel NewsAsia, “PAP town councils to freeze S&C charges this year” (February 28, 2008)
Barely two and a half months later, on May 5 2008, this is what ‘officials’ at the PAP-run Aljunied Town Council (TC) said:
Officials also said they will consider raising the conservancy charges for the dirtiest precincts to cover the extra work that goes into maintaining them …
- “Aljunied trash index aims to wipe out litterbugs.” (Straits Times, May 5, 2008)
The Finance Minister had called for all town councils to freeze their fees during the recent Budget debate in Parliament when he announced the extension of a one-year freeze on fee increases for government-provided services till the end of 2008.
And indeed, as the Channel NewsAsia report said, all 14 PAP TCs declared that they will not increase S&CC for 2008.
However, it seems that PAP town councils, and Aljunied GRC TC in particular, are already looking for ways to increase S&C charges next year – Aljunied TC citing “hardcore litterbugs” in the “dirtiest precincts” as its reason for doing so.
With inflation hitting 26-year highs, isn’t this proposed increase in fees for “the dirtiest precincts” a breach of the PAP town councils’ promise to Singaporeans?
Aljunied GRC Town Council
The fact of the matter is that Aljunied TC, along with all PAP-run TCs, have enough funds to address the “hardcore litterbugs” problem. (Read here for TOC’s earlier article on town councils’ funds.)
According to Aljunied Town Council’s Annual Reports, it had $84 million in its Sinking Fund, an increase of 5 per cent over it’s $80 million in 2005/2006.
Its accumulated surpluses as at 31 March 2007 was $5 million.
Its funds invested with fund managers was $44 million, an increase of about 33 per cent over the $30 million in 2005/2006.
In an earlier article, TOC reported:
According to the Straits Times’ report of March 25, 2006, “The gathering storm”:
Taking into account all the grants from the Government, the Aljunied Town Council, for example, gets $560 per household for the financial year ending March 2005.
The grants include funds from the Community Improvement Projects Committee (CIPC), which is controlled by the Ministry of National Development.
In contrast, government grants came up to just $113 per household in Potong Pasir.
In another report on the same day, “Hougang’s Low may be ‘heart’ to beat”, the Straits Times reported:
Government grants came up to about $111 per household in Hougang in 2004-05. By contrast, neighbouring Aljunied Town Council, which has access to funds such as the government-controlled Community Improvement Projects Committee (CIPC), got $560 per household for the same period.
One therefore will have to question why the Aljunied Town Council charges more for S&CC than Potong Pasir and Hougang, across the board – from 2 rooms to executive flats – when the Aljunied TC is getting more government grants than the two opposition wards.
In one instant, a one-roomer’s S&CC in Aljunied Crescent rose from $3.50 to $18.50 from 1994 to 2005 – an increase of about 428 per cent.
Raising fees, penalties, legal cost, jail, lose your home!
Instead of charging more, how about reducing S & CC for the cleaner precincts instead?
Instead of using penalties almost all the time, how about incentives to motivate people, for a change?
By the way, we understand that if you couldn’t pay your S & CC, the penalty used to be just 50 cents or a dollar or so.
Now, we believe it is 2 per cent per month of the amount owed or a fixed penalty of a few dollars, whichever is the higher.
2 per cent is the highest charge for all financial transactions allowed in Singapore, and only credit cards charge such a high rate.
If you can’t pay your S & CC, you are slapped with penalties. If you still can’t pay, you get a legal letter for which you have to pay the legal cost. As it’s a standard letter for which thousands are sent every month, why charge $20 as the legal fee for such a letter?
If you still can’t pay, you are charged in court, and slapped with a fine.
Well, here’s the paradox – if you can’t pay for your S & CC, how can you afford to pay the fine?
If you can’t pay the fine, you may end up in jail.
By the way, how many people in Singapore have been to jail?
The Town Council Act also empowers the Town Council to sell your HDB flat to recover unpaid S & CC.
A billion dollars in funds, yet…
In the spirit of keeping one’s promise, this new idea to increase S & CC should be nipped in the bud, before we waste anymore of taxpayers’ money and time to figure out how to implement it.
Perhaps our MPs may have rather short memories, as the promise was made just about 2 months ago.
By the way, with more than a billion dollars in PAP town councils’ sinking funds, as well as operating surpluses – does Aljunied Town Council still need to charge more “to cover the extra work that goes into maintaining them”, as officials at the TC claimed?
It is high time that PAP-run Town Councils stop taking the easy way out.
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vote the PAP out for great justice!
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maybe "they" trying very hard to recoup their losses (invested in those mutual funds + Lehman Brothers un-water bonds.. )
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Those poor citizens. Instead of helping the needy, they are pushing them to the limits. Haiz. Bear in mind suicidal is not an option, keep away from MRT tracks.
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Originally posted by Fallen-Angel:
Those poor citizens. Instead of helping the needy, they are pushing them to the limits. Haiz. Bear in mind suicidal is not an option, keep away from MRT tracks.
MRT is the trend now. -
Originally posted by Fallen-Angel:
Those poor citizens. Instead of helping the needy, they are pushing them to the limits. Haiz. Bear in mind suicidal is not an option, keep away from MRT tracks.
MRT is the trend now. -
not all town councils belong to PAP lah.
These people do not know what they are talking about
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Originally posted by Chester_Lim:
not all town councils belong to PAP lah.
These people do not know what they are talking about
Which do not belong . . . . to PAP? -
PAP again
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Originally posted by BanguIzai:
PAP again
? what?. . .. town councils under HDB . . . . HDB under PAP . . .
? what
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Hmm, jalan besar, should be lily neo lor.
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Originally posted by ditzy:
Hmm, jalan besar, should be lily neo lor.
. .. saw the pic of Lee Boon Yang there . . . -
Originally posted by we sacrifice:
. .. saw the pic of Lee Boon Yang there . . .
Dr Lee? that Dr who took care of my dogs once?? -
It's a business now.
How else can some TC employee get 8 months bonus?
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outrageous.....Singapore Inc indeed.
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
outrageous.....Singapore Inc indeed.
Pay and pay.
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Ironically, if you have troubles paying even your bills, what makes them think you have money to pay for all the additional legal fees and such when they bring you to court?
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cos they the gahmen people tell you i law by law
this is A FINE COUNTRY
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NOT ABLE TO PAY U END UP IN JAIL!! ONCE RELEASED, YOU STILL HAVE TO PAY, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOWN COUNCIL IS WORST THAN AH LONG!!
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pay and pay. 66.6% (a landslide according to george yeo) would be happy to oblige.
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also can pay in instalement
1 article about tv license one appear in last year zao bao
so how can the big guan understand the common people
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The TS is lying.
I have friends working in town council and they are always willing to let the people pay by instalements if they have financial problems.
TS must be 1 of those that refuse to pay even by instalements and now come to forums to slander the town councils
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oh, Chester, you are so daring to point it out, i am in the same boat with you, just that i dun wish to take TS down...TC got 8 mths bonus???...my goodness...are they making up from one lie to another???