After my posts about the AHTC some angry folks kept coming here and waving their fists - "what about AIM case with PAP!?". And while it is rather annoying to have to keep explaining things that were already explained once I have to say it's also quite good that this particular event is brought up because it can just highlight the differences in management of Town Council affairs by both parties.
So, to refresh your memory, the controversy over PAP-owned company AIM erupted when it pulled the plug on the software that was used to manage Town Council affairs in 2011, after Workers' Party won Aljunied GRC, which was merged together to form Aljunied-Hougang Town Council.
AIM, owned by 3 previous PAP MPs, bought the rights to the software a year earlier - sparking angry questions how is it that town councils sell "critical" software to a de facto party-owned company! Like dis cannot!
So, let's go over the reasons:
1. The software was originally developed by Singtel subsidiary NCS back in 2003, to unify how all Town Councils are managed.
2. The contract with NCS was supposed to end on October of 2010, with a possible extension of one year.
3. Knowing that the termination date is coming, the Town Councils came together and jointly appointed an external tech auditor (Deloitte and Touche Enterprise Risk Services) in 2010 to evaluate whether the software is still viable and what the next course of action should be.
4. Unsurprisingly, the conclusion of the review was that the software was outdated and could not serve the councils much longer, particularly as some parts of it were also losing 3rd party vendor support.
5. Knowing that the entire software suite will have to be changed soon, the TCs decided to extract any remaining value of intellectual property rights that the software package may still have had - and which they were legal owners of. To that end they called an open tender, inviting companies to bid on the software package - which could be useful to such a 3rd party (if e.g. it wanted to develop its own solution on the basis of acquired knowledge).
6. The tender was advertised in the Straits Times on 30th of June, 2010 and five different companies collected documents - including the original developer, NCS.
7. Ultimately, four of them decided against submitting offers and AIM ended up being the only bidder, offering S$140,000 for the rights (and winning the tender).
8. One of the conditions of the tender was that the new owner would then lease back the software to TCs for the extent of time that was necessary to procure a new solution, drawing monthly fees in return. This process was concluded with another tender in 2013, which saw Japanese company NEC winning the contract to provide PAP councils with a new system.
9. The termination clauses of the contract with AIM stipulated that TCs have the right to exit the agreement if they are unhappy with AIM, while AIM had the right to exit the agreement with any specific Town Council, if it materially changes in e.g. size. This is understandable, since if borders of councils changed, the software could be used for more people for the same price, which would put AIM at a disadvantage.
10. Crucially, this contract was signed BEFORE the elections of 2011, before PAP ever knew that it would lose a GRC.
11. In 2011, when WP took Aljunited and created a new Aljunied-Hougang Town Council, it subsequently informed AIM in a letter from June 10, 2011 that it was developing its own system that is supposed to go online on Aug. 1, 2011 and requested concurrent use of AIM system until Aug. 31, 2011, for testing purposes.
12. AIM agreed to these requests.
13. Following legal advice, given the termination clauses I mentioned above, AIM then sent a termination notice on June 22 - effectively acceding to the request that came from the Workers' Party (and terminating the contract in line with the condition that the TC's make up changed significantly). In a follow up message sent June 24, it also agreed to extend the license for WP use until Aug. 31 (which it later extended to Sep. 9).
14. Bizarrely, Sylvia Lim later claimed that WP wanted to use the software and the reason it sent the message (mind you - containing specific dates and making specific requests) was that they feared that AIM would terminate the contract (even if it showed no intention to).
This was after she claimed AIM pulled the plug of its own volition, leaving WP empty handed, to which AIM then simply showed the letter from June 10.
Summing up, PAP Town Councils decided to sell the software following an independent tech audit, given that it was growing old and the contract with NCS was coming to an end.
Since they themselves had no need for ageing intellectual property but a specialized 3rd party might, they then called an open tender, which was answered by five companies but saw only AIM submit a bid. The deal went through and the software was supported until a new solution was selected through another tender in 2013.
When WP won Aljunied it specifically informed AIM of its intentions to develop new software on its own and requested extended support for the transitional period - which AIM agreed to.
The only thing this case highlights vs. the AHTC affair that ended in court is the transparency with which PAP councils approached managing their needs. They called in expert consultants, they tried to extract any possible remaining value from the software by calling an open tender, while ensuring continuity of the services until a new solution was launched.
Contrast that, please, with how WP appointed FMSS. There was no tender, the company was owned by WP supporters who were also employed by the council and, on its behalf, evaluated their own work and paid themselves money (that only required a co-signature of someone from WP leadership).
There was no control, no oversight, no procedures in place that would establish that work was being performed or that the rates paid to FMSS were competitive.
Even on the AIM affair, WP tried to escape responsibility for their own blunder. The termination of the contract was initiated by WP and AIM - despite being owned by PAP members and despite being portrayed as some evil organization deliberately causing problems for WP - actually agreed to all requests made by the Workers' Party.
This has now become a pattern - whatever WP messes up (and it is ABSOLUTELY CLEAR from the documentation, facts and figures) - it plays the victim card.
"In good faith"?
