Town councils to receive grant adjustment of S$1.8 million from MND due to discrepancy

The shortfall was discovered by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) during an internal review of the grant computation process.

For each financial year, the grant amount is calculated based on household data before its start. The grant amount for each disbursement is then adjusted to reflect changes in the number of households from the previous year.

However, due to a system error from FY2011 to FY2024, a small number of HDB flats handed over to town councils in March of the affected years were omitted from the computation. The discrepancy for a particular year was not carried over to the following year, as the omitted flats were accounted for during the next grant computation.

The deficit represents 0.09 per cent of the S&CC grant sum that was disbursed by MND over the 14 years and would have had minimal impact on their operations, MND said.

MND disburses over S$280 million annually in grants to support town councils’ operations, which include the management and maintenance of the common areas in HDB housing estates.

MND said that the discrepancy has since been rectified.

“To prevent recurrence, HDB has implemented more robust system checks, as well as validation and reconciliation controls as part of the grant computation process,” the ministry added.

MND and HDB will complete the disbursement of the underpayments to the affected town councils with interest by Jan 31 next year.