SINGAPORE: A court of five judges on Thursday grilled lawyers representing Aljunied Hougang Town Council and Sengkang Town Council on their arguments depicting how Workers' Party leaders had breached duties owed to the town council and misused S$33.7 million of town council funds.
However, all eight parties took to court to appeal against the high court's finding that they were liable for various breaches, maintaining that Justice Kannan Ramesh had erred in law and on facts in his decision. READ: AHTC trial: Sylvia Lim admits to breaching town council financial rules by not calling for tender
The lawyer said his clients had made their decisions in good faith, referencing an indemnity clause in the Town Councils Act that protects town councillors from any legal proceedings for acts done in good faith.The judges grilled lawyer David Chan, who represented AHTC, on why CPG was not called to the stand during the trial - pointing to how there was no evidence that they might have wanted to continue acting as the opposition-led town council's managing agent.
Adding on, Justice Phang asked if it was possible that there were discrepancies by other town councils' managing agents. Mr Chan responded that the failure to call for a waiver of a tender process led to the appointment of FMSS, and put in place a process that created inherent risk with conflicted persons in charge of payments. He added that there were other managing agents who had expressed interest to help run the town council, but acknowledged when grilled that he did not have any names of these agents and did not know who they were.
"Mr Low is an experienced politician. He obviously went in with a high degree of scepticism that CPG wanted to do the work, and CPG did as he expected. But it's artificial to say they should've gone in expecting that CPG wanted to stay, because they never intimated a desire to stay. They weren't even called as witnesses.
"He may also have his preference as to particular contractors that perhaps he views as aligned with his political persuasion. It's not wrong in itself. But whatever your political persuasion, you have to work within the rules ... and you are indeed chosen to play by those rules. Those rules apply across a political spectrum, regardless of which political party you come from."
This is how an impartial court works. Whether it will be how this report is headlined tomorrow in the papers and the points reported on CNA is another thing.
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