I refer to the article “WP and MND still differ on town council rates” (Straits Times, May 16). MND disputes WP’s figures It states that “While Ms Lim said FMSS’ rates are charged according to a tiered yearly increase, MND last night disputed the figures she gave. FMSS’s three-year contract with AHTC is worth $16,752,314 in all, based on data the town council had submitted to the Housing Board, it said.

During the debate in Parliament on Town Councils on 13 May 2013, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan made several remarks about the Workers’ Party (WP), Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) and AHPETC’s managing agent (MA), FM Solutions and Services Pte Ltd (FMSS). Ms Sylvia Lim (Chairman of the WP and AHPETC, MP for Aljunied GRC) and Mr Pritam Singh (Vice-chairman of AHPETC, MP for Aljunied GRC) responded in Parliament to the Minister. The following is a summary of the key clarifications raised

During the debate in Parliament on Town Councils on 13 May 2013, Parliament discussed the controversial sale of the Town Council Management System (TCMS) to Action Information Management Pte Ltd (AIM), a company wholly-owned by the PAP, allowing AIM to terminate the TCMS with one month’s notice should there be a material change in the membership of the Town Council.

Recently, my friend in HR told me that she has been seeing many Pinoys infesting the Singapore HR landscape. She said that she made many friends from Pinoys when she attended many seminars organised by SNEF Singapore National Employers Federation. Ironically, SNEF seminars are organised mainly to inform HR personnel on wage credit and workfare training support to help Singaporeans. She was surprised that Pinoys could even be hired on EPs and be hired as HR because one needs to know Singapore's CPF Act, Employment Act and Compensation and Benefits before you can be hired.

The advertisement yesterday of the letter to all Singaporeans from our kindness mascot Singa may have been meant in humour, but it was in bad taste. Singa the Lion also represents Singapore, and how can Singapore or Singaporeans quit? What signal are we sending to our children? That because we cannot get things done our way, we just quit? Singa’s departure should be reconsidered. Maybe he needs a sidekick to help him; MediaCorp artiste Gurmit Singh should be a good choice.

Singaporean housewife Siti Khadijah Abdul Rahman accumulated a few thousand dollars' worth of gold accessories over the past two decades, but now a rising cost of living is forcing her to pawn them. With a stretched household budget that must also cater to school expenses for her two teenaged children, the 49 year-old is pawning her gold to relieve pressure on her security guard husband, who earns Sg$1,500 ($1,211) a month.

There is no contradiction in MA rates nor missing money as MND suggests. To recall the sequence of events: When we first gave our MA rate for FY 2012 based on residential units, MND said our computation should be based on residential and commercial units, so we then re-computed the MA rates based on MND’s methodology, which continued to show at best a 4.5% increase over the PAP MA’s rate for Aljunied for 2012, not 20% as claimed.

They had been entrusted with money donated by their members to build a new church, but City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee and his aides “dishonestly misappropriated” $24 million of this instead. Adding to that, they went on to cover this up by devising a series of transactions to the tune of $26.6 million, after the mega church’s external auditors raised questions about the funds.

The trial of six City Harvest Church leaders resumed today with the prosecution questioning former church assistant accountant Lai Baoting about two tranches of bonds from its investment manager AMAC Capital Partners’ Special Opportunities Fund. AMAC is a company founded by one of the accused, Chew Eng Han. Chew and five others including church founder Kong Hee are facing charges of criminal breach of trust and falsifying accounts.