Friday, June 3, 2011

Shocking Expenses

With the General Elections 2011 (GE 2011) over, the various political parties in Singapore are opening their books to show how much they spent on the GE. As expected, the People's Action Party (PAP) Tanjong Pagar team was the first to open their books.

This was because there wasn’t a contest in Tanjong Pagar, so they would have the easiest time their expenses right. Their numbers shocked everyone.

The PAP Tanjong Pagar team reported that they racked up S$164,000 in expenses during the recent GE campaign. How the hell does one racked up S$164,000 in expenses when there’s not even a contest in the ward? During the recent GE campaign, the (smaller) Singapore People's Party (SPP) racked up only around $30,000 in total for the three constituencies it contested. Yet somehow, the PAP Tanjong Pagar managed to rack up 5 times that amount in a single ward where there wasn’t even a contest!

How the hell is that possible? I think the PAP and the Tanjong Pagar team need to answer questions on their expenses. Almost everyone I spoke to find the number ridiculous and they are awaiting the rest of the numbers with a slight sense of dread. If this is the number for Tanjong Pagar, what are the expenses for the other PAP teams where there were contests?

The only good thing that came out of this; the SPP spend 5 times less and still managed to almost win the Potong Pasir ward. This shows that in politics at least, money isn’t everything.

3 comments:

xtrocious said...

Guess that may include ferrying their residents to attend PAP rallies, which typically also includes makan...

Not hard to do the maths if you want to...

Anonymous said...

If we were to consider the Share and Grow Package, PAP should have long ago been disqualified for overspending public tax payers' monies, speaking of the devil

Ghost said...

There wasn't any contest in Tanjong Pagar so there shouldn't be any ferrying of residents to rallies. That makes it hard to think of how the cost came to so high.
As for the Share and Grow Package, it's a government, not PAP, plan. So there's no overspending of public tax. For people who thinks otherwise...that didn't stop you from taking the money right?