Jaslyn Go’s Blog

Ms. Go Hui Leng

Your ref:

25th February 2008

Urban Redevelopment Authority
45 Maxwell Road, The URA Centre
Singapore 069118

Dear Sirs

Court Summons:
Defendant Name: Go Hui Leng
Defendant NRIC:
Vehicle no.:

Reference to your letter dated 6th February 2008.

It is beside the point that the registered article was claimed as the fact was that I never had notice of the matter until the warrant of arrest which was sent to my home. I have already indicated that I am not the person running the business as the business is run by my husband and there are 3 drivers in that business. Even if the article was claimed by one of my staff there is no longer any way of identifying who was the culprit.

When I attended before your investigating officer Ms Fong Teng on 15th January 2008 to review the above case. I cited how I had always paid the fines in the past without issue or any escalation to such a stage in order to show that this was clearly a case of oversight that resulted in a warrant of arrest and also a fine of S$400/-. I was flabbergasted by her positions / assertions which were follows:-

In justifying her refusal to accept any explanation given, she used the following reasons:-

1. She asserted that any notice sent by registered post would suffice to be duly served whether or not there was actual receipt.

2. The URA checks for latest ACRA registered address before the A. R. registered 2nd reminder is sent.

3. The only grounds that an appeal will be allowed are if the company has moved and the registered letters were sent to an old address.

4. The URA does not consider past records.
Firstly we must take note of the following:-

1. Your letter expressly invited me to attend at the URA to review the case. Yet your office did not notify me of the narrow scope of appeal.

2. I am a mother with 2 young children. I had to find time for others to babysit my children before I could come to the URA. Only to be met with a brickwall on attending by your Ms Fong Teng.

3. Your office having to consider facts and information available is not incorrect. However your Ms Fong Teng had asserted that the only scope for appeal was for there to be changes in addresses only and proof of changes in address is necessary for an appeal to be entertained. It would seem that your Ms Fong Teng had misrepresented the URA’s position when she decided to not accept the reasons I stated for the appeal.

4. Your office by your Ms Fong Teng and your Ms Serene Chua in not addressing or considering this point is assessing the matter with fair consideration for a successful appeal.

5. If I had known of the criteria set by the URA, I would not have wasted my time to even bother to arrange to attend before the investigating officer.

6. That being the case, it begets the question of what would suffice to move your office to grant an appeal in the first place bearing in mind that it was by your office’s letter of 17th December 2007 that urged me to take time to attend to present my case on appeal in the first place.

This leads us to the following questions:-

1. What does the URA hope to achieve when obviously it would be inviting many people to attend to review their cases only to be rejected by the narrow scope of appeal set by your officers. The URA could have expressly stated its criterion for successful review in its letters to avoid wasting people’s time.

2. Furthermore, if the URA was indeed adopting a narrow scope of appeal and its investigating officers were acting as instructed, what then is the URA trying to achieve by creating the illusion of hope to the persons receiving the summonses?

3. Is the URA intent on patronizing our citizens by asking them to take time to attend at the URA with the illusion that an appeal / review channel was available with some chance of success?

4. Is the URA wasting taxpayers’ money by employing so many investigation officers to review cases when in actual fact its scope for appeals is so narrow that the bulk of appeals would be eliminated had the appeals / review policy been clearly stated to begin with?

Your reply of 6th February 2008 did not answer the above questions. Subsequently, I received notice from HDB on 12th February 2008 that your office requested them to refuse renewal of my season parking ticket for my personal vehicle [deleted] until my parking offences with URA are settled.

This is deliberately making things difficult for me and putting me in the position of incurring exorbitant per minute parking charges when I am denied my season parking ticket and when my car park is going electronic parking on 4th March 2008.

I am surprised to note how the URA practices strong-arm tactics on citizens in such situations? Do you think that the URA is acting in accordance with the law in doing so? In the event if your office might find justification in the law, does your office think that this is morally right to do so?

Given the above aggravation, I do not have any choice but to take this matter up accordingly.

The URA’s refusal to address pertinent questions will only put it in bad light.

Yours faithfully

Go Hui Leng

Go Hui Leng

18^th February 2008

Bukit Merah Branch Office

Blk 166 Bukit Merah Central

#03-3529

Singapore 150166

Dear Sirs

RENEWAL OF SEASON PARKING TICKET THROUGH INTERBANK GIRO

Vehicle registration no. :

Bank :

Account no. :

Season Parking GIRO Ref. :

Your letter of 12^th February 2008 is referred to. You have denied me from buying the season parking ticket for the most frivolous of reasons. Furthermore, do note the following:

1. I am a resident in the area. I am entitled to buy a season parking ticket.

2. My vehicle [deleted] has a clean record; I do not owe any fines or have any outstanding offences under this vehicle.

3. Your office has recently converted the car park to ERP parking on the reason that it is done for the benefit of motorists. The ERP parking will commence on 4^th March 2008. The parking charges on the normal rate will be far more than that of a season parking ticket. Is it fair for your office to force me into incurring per-minute parking charges without a season parking ticket?

4. I am in correspondence with the URA on the other matter. How is your office involved in that dispute?

5. What is the policy rationale for your office denying my renewal of the season parking ticket when I have an outstanding matter with a separate department on a separate vehicle? Are the government departments ganging up to pressure me to settle the other matter?

I am disgusted at the manner in which this is being handled. The season parking renewal has to be done on or before the 26^th of each month. Kindly let me have your written reply before this date and it will be brought up to higher authorities accordingly.

Yours faithfully

I wrote to my trusted MP – Mr Baey Yam Keng..

He forwarded my email to CEO of URA / HDB..

From: BAEY.YamKeng@capitaland.com
Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:09:41 +0800
Subject: Re: Rights As A Resident To Purchase A Season Parking Ticket Was Denied By HDB / URA

CEO URA
CEO HDB

I refer to the following email from my resident Ms Goh. I would
appreciate it if both URA and HDB could assess the request favourably. Thank
you.

Regards
Yam Keng

Sent from my Blackberry

I have a story to tell. This story is about the arrogance, high-handedness and incompetence of the civil service administration in the form of two government bodies: the URA and HDB.

I am a housewife but I have a business registered under my name. Under the business is registered a van. One of my drivers incurred a parking fine and failed to report / settle it. To make things worse, the letters of reminder sent by URA to the office were misplaced.

I only found out when a letter was finally sent to my home stating that a warrant of arrest had been issued against me for failing to attend a court summons from the parking offence. The letter stated that I had to attend at the Warrant Enforcement Unit to execute the warrant of arrest and then see the URA officer to review my case.

I then attended at the police station and executed the warrant. I was given a new court mention date and after that I went to the URA officer to appeal. The appeal in short was as follows:

1. I am a housewife and I am not at the office premises.

2. I never had notice of the matter until the warrant of arrest which was sent to my home.

3. Due to the fact that the offence happened some time ago, long delay from the offence till issuance of the court summons, failure to attend the court date and issuance of the warrant of arrest, it is no longer possible to identify the culprit in the company as there are 3 drivers in total and I would have to bear the amount.

4. This was unfair as I have paid many fines on time and I had never allowed any parking offence to escalate to such a stage in the past. . This particular parking offence had been escalated because of pure oversight by the staff at the office and I was not present there. As a result the S$30/- fine became a S$400/- figure.

The meeting with the URA officer was most disappointing. She never had the intention to listen to the appeal at all. She rejected my reasons stating that

1. one of the reminders which was a registered letter was claimed.

2. the only ground for an appeal is if the company has moved and changed address the registered letters were sent to the previous address.

3. the URA checks for latest ACRA registered address before the A. R. registered 2nd reminder is sent.

4. in any event, all A R Registered letters once sent out are deemed received whether or not anyone signed for the article.

5. The URA does not consider past records of fines settlement at all.

I was flabbergasted by her positions / assertions bearing in mind the following:-

1. It was URA’s own letter informing me of the warrant of arrest that expressly invited me to attend at the URA to review the case. The letter did not state the supposed strict and narrow scope of appeal which was used by the officer.

2. I am a mother with 2 young children. I had to find time for others to babysit my children before I could come to the URA. I went to substantial trouble before I managed to do so only to be met with a brickwall on attending before the URA officer.

3. their refusal to exercise their minds and not addressing or considering the points does not give fair consideration for an appeal.

4. If I had known of the criteria set by the URA, I would not have wasted my time to even bother to arrange to attend before the investigating officer.

I then wrote to feedback the poor workflow, poor case management by the URA. I stated my clear intention to bring the matter up to higher authorities of what the URA was doing in accordance with the officer’s words:-:

1. they had set a narrow scope of appeal yet not making it clear.
2. they wasted people’s time to attend before the URA only to be rejected.
3. In essence, the URA deliberately creates the illusion of hope of a successful appeal to patronize citizens.
4. If appeals were only granted on the narrow scope change of addresses, there was nothing to consider at all.
5. they were wasting a lot of taxpayer’s money having so many officers hearing false appeals.

Out of fairness, I stated my intention to criticize the URA’s management of such cases and offered the URA the right of reply before I bring the matter up further.

In supposed reply, the URA claimed that it had to consider facts and information available before granting an appeal but URA refused to reply to the other points.

However the URA appeals officer had clearly stated that there was only one ground on which the URA would entertain an appeal: There was a change in address with proof of such change in address.

The representation of the URA officer was not disputed by the URA. Therefore, there can only be two possibilities. Either:

1. the appeals officer had conveniently and irresponsibly and dishonestly abused her position and authority to misrepresent the URA’s position when she decided to summarily reject my reasons for the appeal; or

2. the appeals officer was telling the truth and there was indeed a narrow scope set for the appeal.

The scenario begets the question of what would suffice to move URA to grant an appeal bearing in mind that it was URA’s letter that urged me to take time to attend to present my case to the URA in the first place. This would have to be clarified.

However, the second scenario would inevitably lead us to the following questions:-

1. If the URA was indeed adopting a narrow scope of appeal and its investigating officers were acting as instructed. The URA could have simply expressly stated its criterion for successful review in its letters to avoid wasting people’s time.

2. But the URA did not make clear its strict scope for appeal. What does the URA hope to achieve when obviously it would be inviting many people to attend to review their cases only to be rejected by the narrow scope of appeal set by their officers?

3. Is the URA deliberately by creating the illusion of hope to the persons receiving the summonses? What is the URA trying to achieve here?

4. Is the URA intent on patronizing our citizens by asking them to take time to attend at the URA with the illusion that an appeal / review channel was available with some chance of success?

5. Is the URA wasting taxpayers’ money by employing so many investigation officers to review cases when in actual fact its scope for appeals is so narrow that the bulk of appeals would be eliminated had the appeals / review policy been clearly stated to begin with?

The URA’s reply did not answer the above questions.

Subsequently, I received notice from HDB on 12th February 2008 stating that URA had requested the HDB to refuse renewal of my season parking ticket for my personal vehicle (a totally unrelated vehicle and a vehicle which had no outstanding fines with any authority) until my parking offence with URA was settled.

This is made worse by the fact that the carpark that I use would be going ERP type of electronic per minute parking charges in a matter of less than a month.

This is clearly deliberately making things difficult for me and putting me in the position of incurring exorbitant per minute parking charges when I am denied my season parking ticket and when my car park is going electronic parking on 4th March 2008 .

I am surprised and disappointed to discover that the URA practices strong-arm tactics on Singapore citizens in such situations. Is the URA is acting in accordance with the law in doing so? Even if the URA finds justification in the law, does it think it morally right to do so?

Given the above aggravation, I do not have any choice but to take this matter up accordingly. The URA’s actions and refusal to address pertinent questions will only put it in bad light.