HDB lapses saw flats allocated, housing grants given to ineligible applicants: AGO report

[SINGAPORE] The Housing Board has been found responsible for a series of missteps in the Auditor-General’s Office’s (AGO) latest report, including lapses that saw housing grants given to people who were ineligible for them.

It also potentially overpaid a contractor S$9.7 million for patrol and enforcement work that was not done.

Other issues involved Home Improvement Programme contracts, as well as how HDB processed season parking applications and renewals. This included S$2.95 million collected where the applicant, or the family member the applicant was supposedly visiting, was dead.

The AGO’s annual report, published on July 15, highlights key lapses by ministries and public agencies. It was submitted to President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on July 2 and presented to Parliament on July 14.

AGO found issues with how HDB checked applicants’ eligibility for three schemes – the Married Child Priority Scheme, Proximity Housing Grant and CPF Housing Grant.

As a result of these lapses, flats were allocated and grants disbursed to ineligible applicants, it said.

It added: “This increased the risk of not achieving the intended policy outcome of these schemes, such as for family members to live near one another for mutual support.”

AGO had looked at 37,737 approved applications for the Married Child Priority Scheme and the Proximity Housing Grant scheme. Under the first scheme, married children and their parents get priority access to BTO flats, while the second scheme gives subsidies to those buying a resale flat to live with or near their parents or children.

AGO said HDB had been using its internal records on home ownership and occupier information, as well as applicant-declared information, to assess eligibility for these schemes.

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But such information might not be up to date, as people involved could have changed their residential addresses without HDB’s knowledge, AGO noted.

AGO found that 37 Married Child Priority Scheme applications and 27 Proximity Housing Grant scheme applications, with grants totalling S$0.47 million, did not meet this criterion.

Most of this was due to HDB not using accurate addresses when assessing eligibility, AGO said.

HDB told AGO that issues with two Proximity Housing Grant scheme applications were attributable to staff oversight, while seven were due to inconsistencies in calculation of distances.

These nine applications had been rectified, it added. The report did not say what was done about the other applications that had not met the criterion.

AGO added that HDB should have ensured that its internal records were consistent with the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s (ICA) records.

In a statement issued on July 15, HDB said it has introduced additional checks on residential addresses against ICA’s records.

It has also taken steps to regularise discrepancies, including recovering grants where needed.

“HDB acknowledges the importance of using accurate, up-to-date information on residential addresses to assess eligibility for proximity-based priority schemes and grants,” the statutory board said.

AGO also found that for 1,619 applications, addresses in HDB’s records did not match the relevant addresses in ICA’s records during the minimum occupancy period.

HDB has looked into 92 applications so far. Of these, 10 involved cases where individuals did not stay at or within 4km of the purchased flat during the minimum occupancy period.

In 42 applications, individuals had failed to update their addresses with ICA. For 10 others, individuals had changed their place of residence without HDB’s approval.

For the other 30 applications, HDB’s investigation found that they either had prior approvals from HDB or they fell under special circumstances.

In some cases, HDB has recovered the grants with accrued interest.

For proximity housing grant agreements, it will also require individuals to update their NRIC addresses within 28 days of moving into the purchased flat to stay with applicants, or to an address within 4km of the purchased flat.

Weaknesses in processing of season parking applications and renewals

The AGO found weaknesses in eligibility checks on Tier 1 season parking and family season parking transactions, involving S$24.99 million.

To be eligible for Tier 1 season parking, applicants must be the registered owner, authorised occupier, or tenant of HDB flats or shops in the HDB precinct served by the car park.

The AGO found that 12,359 applicants for 1,697 applications and 185,555 renewals, totalling S$21.39 million, did not qualify.

Notably, 37,138 transactions were made by applicants who were not owners, occupiers or tenants of any HDB flat or shop, AGO said.

HDB said that renewal of the passes was usually done every month and transacted through online or automatic recurrent payment modes and that “to be resident-centric”, continued eligibility was not verified at renewal as places of residence were usually unchanged.

AGO’s analysis also found that 30,199 transactions were approved for 2,534 applicants. This was even though the applicant or enabler – the family member to be visited – had passed away between 31 days and 26 years before the date of application or renewal.

“This put in doubt the identity and eligibility of the applicant and enabler. In our view, it is important for HDB to ascertain their identity so that it can ensure that the eligibility criteria are met,” AGO said.

AGO also found that 1,585 commercial vehicles were charged incorrect season parking rates for 10,922 transactions. Instead of commercial rates, they were charged non-commercial ones resulting in an estimated under-collection of fees of S$1 million.

HDB said: “We will introduce measures such as periodic full checks of other relevant eligibility information and requiring applicants to declare at application that they met the eligibility criteria and reminding them at renewal that they must continue to do so.”

Possible S$9.7m in overpayment to contractor for patrol and enforcement services

AGO also found that HDB did not exercise adequate oversight of a contractor it engaged to provide patrol and enforcement services for its car parks.

Based on HDB’s preliminary estimate, it had possibly overpaid the contractor S$9.7 million for patrol and enforcement work not performed.

Discrepancies included actual patrol frequency for some car parks being lower than required by HDB, significant differences between rostered and actual car park patrol records and concurrent clock-ins by the same patrol personnel at different car park locations.

HDB said that upon being alerted to the discrepancies, it raised them with the contractor which conducted its own investigation.

The investigation uncovered access control weaknesses in the contractor’s system for managing the work of patrol personnel, which compromised the integrity of the records.

The contractor has since lodged a police report and as an immediate preventive measure, HDB worked with the contractor to remove system rights to amend car park data and implemented automated system checks for more rigorous monitoring.

Besides issuing a formal warning letter in March for contractual breaches, HDB also commenced recovery of the administrative charges, which includes the full extent of payments made for works not rendered.

“HDB recognises that there were gaps in its processes and has taken steps to address them, including the implementation of automated system checks for more rigorous monitoring, and adopting stronger contractual requirements in the latest contracts,” it added.

Errors in orders for Home Improvement Programme (HIP) contracts

AGO also looked through 44 variation orders totalling S$34.80 million for 14 HIP contracts. It found errors in the valuation of 19 such orders, involving seven contracts managed by HDB’s consultants.

The errors were due to the use of incorrect rates in the valuation such as star rates instead of contract rates and resulted in a total underpayment of S$1.02 million for five contracts and overpayment of S$0.25 million for four others.

AGO said there was inadequate assurance that HDB had exercised sufficient oversight in the valuation of variation works by its consultants.

HDB told AGO that it would reassess and adjust the valuation of the affected orders by June, and downgraded the performance ratings of the consultants involved.

In addition, HDB will implement measures such as conducting a review of its item descriptions for contract rates to ensure clarity. THE STRAITS TIMES