Action Information Management

Action Information Management Pte Ltd
(AIM)

Other names	AIM
Status	struck off
Type	IT services company owned by the People's Action Party (struck off)
Purpose	Coordinating IT services and projects common to the PAP-run town councils
Leadership
Chairman	S. Chandra Das
Director	Chew Heng Ching
Director	Lau Ping Sum
Organisation
Formed	22 July 1991 (35 years ago)
Parent entity	People's Action Party
Headquarters	38 Beach Road #29-11, South Beach Tower, Singapore 189767
Region served	Singapore
UEN	199103607Z

Action Information Management Pte Ltd (AIM) was a company owned by the People's Action Party (PAP), incorporated on 22 July 1991 to provide IT-related services supporting PAP Members of Parliament in the running of their town councils and estates. Its registration number was 199103607Z and its operating status is recorded as struck off. It developed the first-generation Town Council Management System (TCMS) used by the PAP town councils, and in 2010 purchased the second-generation TCMS software from those town councils under a sale-and-leaseback arrangement. That transaction, and AIM's termination of the Aljunied–Hougang Town Council's use of the software in 2011, became the subject of public controversy and of a Ministry of National Development (MND) review in 2013.

Background

AIM was set up by the PAP in 1991 to coordinate IT services and projects common to the PAP-run town councils, so that the town councils did not have to deal with and contract vendors individually for services common to all of them. The MND Town Council Review Team recorded in 2013 that where suitable services were available on the market, the town councils would obtain them from the market, and that where AIM could offer services at market-competitive rates it would tender to provide them.

The review team stated that AIM did not seek to make a profit from its work for the PAP town councils, that its directors were not paid, and that it charged only a fee to recoup its operational costs.

AIM's directors have been former PAP Members of Parliament. The MND review team noted that AIM's directors were ex-MPs who had run town councils before, and that this formed part of the town councils' assessment of AIM's track record when evaluating its 2010 tender bid.

Corporate history

AIM was incorporated on 22 July 1991, some five weeks before the 1991 general election held on 31 August. Its UEN is 199103607Z, its industry classification is recorded as computer programming, consultancy and related activities, and its registered address as 38 Beach Road #29-11, South Beach Tower.

The company's status is recorded as struck off. Its last annual return was filed on 27 May 2015 for the financial year ending 31 December 2014, and its last annual general meeting was held on 30 April 2015. Financial statements are recorded as not applicable.

TR Emeritus, citing ACRA filings, reported in December 2012 that the company's directorships had passed between former PAP MPs over its history:

Date	Event
22 July 1991	AIM incorporated; Ng Pock Too appointed director on the same day
20 December 1991	John Wong Weng Foo, formerly managing director of IBM Singapore, appointed director
1 January 1998	Lau Ping Sum appointed director, following his stepping down from politics in 1997
20 January 1992	Ee Peng Liang & Company appointed auditor
30 June 2008	Auditor changed to C M Leong & Co
March 2010	Ng Pock Too transfers his S$1 share to S. Chandra Das
1 March 2010	Ng Pock Too and John Wong resign as directors; Chandra Das and Chew Heng Ching appointed

TR Emeritus reported that as at 2008 the two shareholders were Ng Pock Too and Lau Ping Sum, holding S$1 each, and that following the March 2010 changes the shareholders were Chandra Das and Lau Ping Sum, holding S$1 each, giving a total paid-up capital of S$2. It noted that Ng Pock Too had been the PAP candidate defeated by J. B. Jeyaretnam in Anson at the 1984 general election, later winning Nee Soon Central in 1988 and losing it in 1991.

The directorship changes of March 2010 took place in the same year as the TCMS tender, which was advertised on 30 June 2010 and awarded to AIM later that year.

Reported composition at the time of the TCMS dispute

At the time of the dispute over the TCMS in December 2012, AIM's three directors were chairman S. Chandra Das and directors Lau Ping Sum and Chew Heng Ching, all former PAP MPs, with a total paid-up capital of S$2 held equally by Chandra Das and Lau. Sylvia Lim, then chairman of AHTC, stated that the company was dormant, and reporting at the time noted that AIM operated from an address shared with a large number of other businesses.

The MND Town Council Review Report of April 2013 did not address AIM's paid-up capital, dormancy or registered address. In a statement of 16 May 2013, Lim contrasted AIM's S$2 paid-up capital with the S$500,000 paid-up capital of FM Solutions and Services Pte Ltd, the managing agent appointed by AHTC.

Town Council Management System

In 1994, HDB informed the town councils that it would cease the IT system support then used by all town councils, to be effected by 1996 as part of HDB's handover of responsibilities to the town councils. The PAP town councils aggregated their demand and called an open tender for the development, installation and maintenance of a Town Council Management System, then known as the Estate Management Application Software. AIM participated in that tender and was awarded the contract to develop the first-generation TCMS.

Hougang Town Council and Potong Pasir Town Council — both then opposition-run — did not use the TCMS, procuring their IT systems from S&I Systems Pte Ltd instead.

In 2003 the PAP town councils called an open tender to develop and maintain the second-generation TCMS. This was awarded to National Computer Systems Pte Ltd (NCS), with a total contract sum of S$23.8 million for the period 1 August 2003 to 31 October 2010, paid from the town councils' operating funds. AIM did not participate in that tender.

The MND review team also recorded that AIM had provided IT services for the PAP town councils under an earlier contract running from 1994 to 2004.

2010 Sale and Leaseback

Main article: Dispute between AHTC and AIM

In June 2010 the 14 PAP town councils called an open tender to sell the second-generation TCMS software subject to a leaseback facility. Five vendors collected tender documents but AIM submitted the only bid, purchasing the intellectual property in the software for S$140,000 — ownership of the physical computer systems remained with the individual town councils — and leasing it back at S$785 per month per town council from 1 November 2010 to 31 October 2011. AIM also undertook to secure extensions of the NCS maintenance contract at no increase in rates.

The contract was extended from 1 November 2011 to 30 April 2013, during which AIM charged no further lease payments but levied a management fee of S$33,150 on a cost-recovery basis.

Following the 2011 general election, AIM gave notice of termination of the Aljunied–Hougang Town Council's use of the TCMS, and granted two extensions before the town council's use ceased on 10 September 2011. The circumstances of that termination and the conduct of the 2010 tender became the subject of public controversy in late 2012 and of an MND review that reported on 30 April 2013.

The MND review team concluded that the PAP town councils had complied with the Town Councils Act and the Town Council Financial Rules in the transaction, that there was no misuse or loss of public monies, and that no town council member held a pecuniary or direct interest in AIM or in the contract awarded to it. It verified that AIM did not make a profit from the transaction, made a loss during the one-year sale-and-leaseback arrangement, and that its directors were not paid a fee.

See also

• Dispute between AHTC and AIM
• Aljunied–Hougang Town Council saga
• People's Action Party
• Town Councils Act