Mr Goh Lian Tse, Chairman and CEO of Innovalues, has written in to BT Forum yesterday in an attempt to salvage some “face” for the embarassing debacle of appointing a bankrupt to the position of Group CFO.

• He said his company’s whistle blowing policies are working fine despite conceding on the lapses in their hiring procedures. I wonder who blew the whistle?
• Mr Goh said the employee was the country financial controller for a Malaysian plant and he was brought to Singapore with a view to be appointed as the Group CFO. Basically his simple defence here is that the appointment to Group CFO position was not confirmed yet. But is he also implying that it is all right for a bankrupt to be a country financial controller in Malaysia but not good enough to be a Group CFO in Singapore? Please enlighten me.

Mr Goh, please confirm whether the said employee is being considered for the position of Group CFO or not given the 2 contradictory statements I am quoting from your letter to the Forum.

1. “He was redeployed to Singapore with a view to being confirmed as group financial controller.”
2. “At no time was the said emplyee being considered for the CFO position.”

“Why can’t a bankrupt be a CFO?”
I agree that a person, bankrupt or otherwise, would need to have some income to keep oneself alive and to pay his/her creditors. But the key question is whether a bankrupt can be a CFO? In my opinion, NO. As a bankrupt, the person has demonstrated that he/she is unable to manage his own financial affairs. And thus I am unable to justify a bankrupt to manage the financial affairs of a company where the likelihood of many are at stake.

If you are, I am sorry you are disqualified from being appointed as the Group CFO of a public listed company.

In yesterday BT’s, it was reported that Innovalues nearly appointed a bankrupt as their Group CFO. The process was only halted after someone anonymously sent a copy of an “individual insolvency search result” to a director of Innovalues.

Apparently the poor chap has verbally informed the interviewer of his status BUT somehow, nobody (including the chap himself/herself) cared to put that information on paper.

Consequent to that embarassing revelation, Innovalues has, of course, promised to do better on their recruitment procedures.

And by the way, the position is still open.

stealing in progress?

Have you been doing cross border billings? Of course, you have not. I hope…

For those who are not familiar with it, here is the explanation. Imagine you have a company in China and also a company in Hong Kong. For businesses secured and completed in China, the billing ie. the invoice is issued from the Hong Kong company.

Why?

Apparently many SMEs, with the above set up, are taking advantage of the 9% discrepancy between the corporate tax rates of two countries (Hong Kong 16.5% and China 25%).

They have been booking their mainland’s revenue in the lower tax region in Hong Kong.

So can we do the same between Singapore and regional countries? You better not as apparently Chinese and Hong Kong authorities are said to be working together to clamp down on such arrangement.

What if Edgar drew a cheque like this where the words and figures are different…

“Amount – Five Thousands Dollars Only $500/-“

In the Forum page of ST a couple of days, DBS Bank apologised to the account holder for wrongly clearing a cheque where the words and figures differ. DBS said they should not have cleared the cheque.

I wish to question whether DBS’s position of not clearing such a cheque is legally correct.

In the Banking Law class that I attended many years ago, I was told that the Bank should honour the cheque based on the “words” stated.

Has the law changed since the years after my Banking Law class? Or have I heard wrongly? If you are not from Singapore, can share with me your country’s practice?

a party in KL worth the memory

A reporter once asked famous bank robber, Willie Sutton: “Why do you rob banks?”
Willie simply replied: “Because that’s where the money is!”

I am sure you will get the same answer if you manage to ask those robbers of banks and ATMs in Malaysia.

In the current new term of my classes, I asked the students the reason as to why did they decide to take up ACCA course.

A student duly responded that it is because ACCA is a qualification regularly asked for in the job advertisements she has reviewed.

So for those who have decided to start and complete your ACCA course, it is a good decision … Good day.

my ketchup-filled fish ball noodle

ACCA released a report in BT today after conducting a survey among ACCA members in Singapore, HK, UK, US, Canada and Australia to rank their respective tax system in terms of fairness, simplicity and transparent.

The good news is that Singapore and Hong Kong have the fairest, simplest and most transparent tax systems, out of six major developed countries.

The bad news is that Hong Kong ranked better than Singapore in all 3 areas.

The question that matters is whether having a tax system that is fair, simple and transparent translates to real comparative advantage against these big economies.

Or is it a hollow victory for Singapore and HK as it basically reflects the smallness of its geographic size and economic complexities?