HDB Financial Statements (March 2005)

Lowclassman SG

I noticed in the latest HDB financial statements (mar. 2005), that there was an item under employee benefits (page 23). It said that between $500,000 and $750,000 was paid to just one FORMER board member!!. I was shocked that a non-profit stat board tasked with providing the people of S'pore with affordable housing can itself afford to pay a board member up to $3/4 million dollars.

But wait, i consoled myself, these Board members are surely well qualified real estate and properties experts and they are worth every dollar we spend on them..............not. With eager anticipation, I scanned the list of board members. perhaps there was a Donald Trump amongst them, maybe a Li Ka Shing even. I was not dissappointed.

Listed as a board member was non other than Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew. Other than ordering seamen (yes that's sailor to you cheongers and not semen), Admiral Lui is a proud holder of a degree in Chemistry from Trinity College, obtained while being a SAF Overseas scholar. As I pondered what management or financial expertise he might have with regards to running such a multibillion dollar real estate business, I suddenly realized that someone with his chemistry background will be vital in analyzing the composition of the concrete in older HDB flats so as to thwart any impending cracks in the structure. In addition, he could develop stronger alumninum for use in HDB windows. What a brilliant appointment.

Not to be outdone, I notice the army also had its own board member in the form of BG Tay Lim Heng. I noticed that the BG is also a CEO of the MAritime and Port Authority of Singapore. No doubt, all Retired Readr Admirals were really impressed by this appointment of a landlubber to a high maritime position.

To further stamp its mark on the board, the army had Col. David Wong appointed too. I guess they must have figured that someone with such obvious expertise in the destruction of buildings should participate now in the construction of buildings. Other than these dubious qualifications, Col. Wong does not seem to have any other skill set suited to HDB, but $500K seems a steal for someone of his talents.

Never let it be said the HDB does not not allow other ethnic groups to feed at the $750K trough. Mdm Halimah from the NTUC and the siao on former sword winner Ravi Menon from the Ministry of Finance are also participants of this feeding frenzy. what their contribution is......that's still a mystery. As for Mdm Halimah, she is also a Member of Parliament for the Jurong Group Representation Constituency, a member of the Economic Development Board, the Jurong Town Corporation, the Workforce Development Agency and the National University of Singapore Council. Do you think she has time to take a ####?

Finally some food for thought. The HDB reports total employee costs and benefits for the last fiscal year at just under $415 million. The group has about 5110 staff members making each average salary a whopping $81,000 a year. Wow. Considering the majority of the staff are low wage clerks, maintenance people etc., I can only speculate that most of this pay went high end white collar employees.

In addition, the HDB reported losses of $637 million for the last year and $845 million the year before. Do you think maybe the BOD is maybe not earning its pay?

Just multiply the above scenario by the number of all the stat boards and I think we get the picture. Stat Boards are just reward programs for PAP insiders.

Lowclassman SG

Originally posted by Lowclassman:
I noticed in the latest HDB financial statements (mar. 2005), that there was an item under employee benefits (page 23). It said that between $500,000 and $750,000 was paid to just one FORMER board member!!. I was shocked that a non-profit stat board tasked with providing the people of S'pore with affordable housing can itself afford to pay a board member up to $3/4 million dollars.

But wait, i consoled myself, these Board members are surely well qualified real estate and properties experts and they are worth every dollar we spend on them..............not. With eager anticipation, I scanned the list of board members. perhaps there was a Donald Trump amongst them, maybe a Li Ka Shing even. I was not dissappointed.

Listed as a board member was non other than Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew. Other than ordering seamen (yes that's sailor to you cheongers and not semen), Admiral Lui is a proud holder of a degree in Chemistry from Trinity College, obtained while being a SAF Overseas scholar. As I pondered what management or financial expertise he might have with regards to running such a multibillion dollar real estate business, I suddenly realized that someone with his chemistry background will be vital in analyzing the composition of the concrete in older HDB flats so as to thwart any impending cracks in the structure. In addition, he could develop stronger alumninum for use in HDB windows. What a brilliant appointment.

Not to be outdone, I notice the army also had its own board member in the form of BG Tay Lim Heng. I noticed that the BG is also a CEO of the MAritime and Port Authority of Singapore. No doubt, all Retired Readr Admirals were really impressed by this appointment of a landlubber to a high maritime position.

To further stamp its mark on the board, the army had Col. David Wong appointed too. I guess they must have figured that someone with such obvious expertise in the destruction of buildings should participate now in the construction of buildings. Other than these dubious qualifications, Col. Wong does not seem to have any other skill set suited to HDB, but $500K seems a steal for someone of his talents.

Never let it be said the HDB does not not allow other ethnic groups to feed at the $750K trough. Mdm Halimah from the NTUC and the siao on former sword winner Ravi Menon from the Ministry of Finance are also participants of this feeding frenzy. what their contribution is......that's still a mystery. As for Mdm Halimah, she is also a Member of Parliament for the Jurong Group Representation Constituency, a member of the Economic Development Board, the Jurong Town Corporation, the Workforce Development Agency and the National University of Singapore Council. Do you think she has time to take a ####?

[b]Finally some food for thought. The HDB reports total employee costs and benefits for the last fiscal year at just under $415 million. The group has about 5110 staff members making each average salary a whopping $81,000 a year. Wow. Considering the majority of the staff are low wage clerks, maintenance people etc., I can only speculate that most of this pay went high end white collar employees.

In addition, the HDB reported losses of $637 million for the last year and $845 million the year before. Do you think maybe the BOD is maybe not earning its pay?

Just multiply the above scenario by the number of all the stat boards and I think we get the picture. Stat Boards are just reward programs for PAP insiders.
[/b]

QCC, Quality Control Circle was introduce in early nineties.

I have seen many HDB clerk-of-works, clerks and junior officials were so busy in the researches and preparations of quality control sessions programmes.
Many lower ranking officials had came out loads of brilliant ideals of improving on construction and maintenance of housing estates. Sad to say, credits were all claimed by the high ranking officials and earned themselves big fat paychecks.

Atobe SG

Another NKF "Peanut" in the making ?

This time a Public Entity that is supposed to be lean and efficient, and is now found to be top heavy.

The average pay per worker of $81,000 annually is too far fetched, as the peon cannot possibly enjoy such a payout.

It must be due to a top heavy payout more than an extraordinary payout to those at the bottom.

Perhaps we may now know the reason for the Civil Servants being paid full bonuses, and restoring salary cuts before the Private Sector has these restored.

HDB had created scandolous history by retrenching their top staff, giving them all extraordinary generous retrenchment benefits, only to re-employ them into a PRIVATE COMPANY that is fully owned by HDB - and to be simply named as HDB Corporation.

Who else is paying the price, but the average Singapore HDB buyer that is paying the price for all these double-dealings.

countdracula SG

the losses are just paper losses, thanks to creative accounting. hdb does not exactly buy any land. it’s just the land office happy happy assign some magic number to the plots of land which hdb is suppose to build for the general masses to live in. this is suppose to be for public housing and you must really wonder why they need to pay sky high salaries to directors who do not make a difference to the lives of the ordinary singaporeans.

pearlie27 SG

my goodness, this looks like Singapore's version of Enron scandal!

dragg SG

it is nothing new.

see how much listed companies pay their top man - millions of dollars.

macjoe SG

When you're paying big bucks to those at the top and still bleeding heavily every year, what are they really good for? Definitely not "not lose money"!

Idea

robertteh SG

When the shipping community first raised the issues of high port and handling charges of PSA, minister in charge dismissed the complaint by claiming that Singapore does not compete on costs but values.

Ministers came out to defend PSA's high port dues and charges in the early years before major shipping lines started pulling out to set up their operations in port paleppas.

Such and many warning signs were already all over the horizon that our public sector high costs were unsustainable.

In 1970 or thereabout, the average entry-level salary of an estate officer was between $650 pm and $900.00 pm or thereabout. Upon passing of his Final Examination of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and confirmation of appointment as an Estates Officer, he would be paid $900.00 pm.

Upon his promotion to the grade of executive estates officer and his salary would be around $2,500.00 pm.

From the period 1970 to 1990s, HDB pushed their estates officers' wages upwards by upping the salary scale of estates officer from $650 to $2,000 pm while creating many levels of promotional posts to retain but actually to reward their officers in departments like building, contract, finance, car park etc.

An area estates officer was upgraded to Executive Estates Officer or Principal Estates Officer. A number of them were promoted to Principal Estates officers and Senior Principal Estates Officers.

Some who got transferred to Town Council became upgraded to General Manager.

All these officers were promoted from estates officers to Executive, Principal and Senior Principal Estates officer of monthly basic salaries of between $100,000.00 and $150,000.00 pm excluding three months' bonus and free golf games, free parking, professional fees reimbursements and holiday bungalow perks.

Their works consisted mostly of tereotyped works of writing standard letters and putting up orders for repairs and writing reports to head office. A Car Park senior officer is paid $90,000.00 pa for signing notices whereas the car park superintendent of carpark operator in the private sector in charge of the whole Singapore operation was paid around $60,000 pa. A technical officer in charge of maintenance had his salary raised from $600 pm in 1970 to $5,000 pm in 1990s.

An equivalent private sector property manager or property executive responsible for marketing, management and maintenance of the estates of greater complexities requiring commercial decisions to stay competitive in the business was paid between $40,000 and $80,000.00 pa. The junior building executive would be paid $2,000 to $2,500 pm with mostly one-month to one-and-half month bonus.

When journalist Lee Han Shih questioned the HDB losses and the overbuilding of HDB flats no one among the ministers including the Minister in charge of MND could answer why there were so much losses and lack of actions.

Yet finally when HDB had no choice but to retrench staff, the senior officers were retrenched with golden handshake of between 30 - 45 months x last drawn pays amounting to about $500,000 each.

Today, many of these retrenched officers were offered high-pay jobs in HBD corps or GLCs and some were employed in the private sector. There was no justification in spending this kind of public taxpayers' monies if the intention is to re-employ them in related companies but this is what has happened.

How to tell the citizens that they are saving the monies in 2005 of $650 millions when $650 millions were simply carelessly given away in unnecessary self-rewards. This kind of monies can easily create 10,000 jobs among the long-term unemployed or be spent to upgrade older estates like Potong Pasir and Hougang.

mhcampboy SG

BG Tay was my Division Ex Div Comd… HAHHA off topic i know..

lotus999 SG

[quote]Originally posted by Lowclassman:
I noticed in the latest HDB financial statements (mar. 2005), that there was an item under employee benefits (page 23). It said that between $500,000 and $750,000 was paid to just one FORMER board member!!. I was shocked that a non-profit stat board tasked with providing the people of S'pore with affordable housing can itself afford to pay a board member up to $3/4 million dollars.

But wait, i consoled myself, these Board members are surely well qualified real estate and properties experts and they are worth every dollar we spend on them..............not. With eager anticipation, I scanned the list of board members. perhaps there was a Donald Trump amongst them, maybe a Li Ka Shing even. I was not dissappointed.

Listed as a board member was non other than Rear Admiral Lui Tuck Yew. Other than ordering seamen (yes that's sailor to you cheongers and not semen), Admiral Lui is a proud holder of a degree in Chemistry from Trinity College, obtained while being a SAF Overseas scholar. As I pondered what management or financial expertise he might have with regards to running such a multibillion dollar real estate business, I suddenly realized that someone with his chemistry background will be vital in analyzing the composition of the concrete in older HDB flats so as to thwart any impending cracks in the structure. In addition, he could develop stronger alumninum for use in HDB windows. What a brilliant appointment.

Not to be outdone, I notice the army also had its own board member in the form of BG Tay Lim Heng. I noticed that the BG is also a CEO of the MAritime and Port Authority of Singapore. No doubt, all Retired Readr Admirals were really impressed by this appointment of a landlubber to a high maritime position.

To further stamp its mark on the board, the army had Col. David Wong appointed too. I guess they must have figured that someone with such obvious expertise in the destruction of buildings should participate now in the construction of buildings. Other than these dubious qualifications, Col. Wong does not seem to have any other skill set suited to HDB, but $500K seems a steal for someone of his talents.

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i wonder how does HDB end up with so many unsold flats when it is being commanded by an elite minister and RA of "ministrial material".