Just read this from another person... precisely my point:
http://mrnewbird.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/why-the-need-of-managing-agent-in-town-council/
WHY THE NEED OF MANAGING AGENT IN TOWN COUNCIL?
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Today, everyone were talking about the Managing Agent (MA) Fee which had blown out of proportion. Now let looks into different perspective view that I’m going to touch on.
What is a MA? Answer taken from the web.
In the case of residential developments, e.g. a blocks of flats, an individual investor or a property company may hold the freehold, or the owners of the individual flats may own it collectively.
In the case of leasehold properties the lease is a contract between the lessee, and the freeholder (often referred to as the lessor), under the terms of the lease the freeholder may be required to manage the property e.g. maintain the exterior and common areas, provide insurance etc.
A managing agent is a person or company appointed by the freeholder of a property, or a management company, to manage that property.
The managing agent contracts with the freeholder, or management company, to manage the property in accordance with the terms of the lease and statutory requirements.
The managing agent is only an agent of the freeholder therefore legal responsibility for the full and proper management of the property remains with the freeholder, or the management company.
In the case of the town council, town council are the owner while MA is just a middleman managing the properties. So as to say, the management of the town council had actually being “OUTSOURCE” to the MA.
My main question here is: do the management of the town council necessary need to be outsource to MA? The answer from me is a firm NO!
Let me list out the reasons why management of the town council is not necessary to be out source.
1) Take for example, who is the person in charge of Hougang TC is non other than the director of FMSS. Why do WP need to engage FMSS to be MA when the director of FMSS is a PAID salary in the town council? He had the expertise in managing the town council.
2) Out-sourcing your own core duties/business are just heading doom. For Example, Like being a service provider, you outsource your service to the third parties, effectively you are giving away your core business.
3) Outsourcing might not be necessary cheap! Take this example, the MA must make a profit in order for them to survive. Thus, if this is all done by the town council themselves, it can save a huge amount of dollars for other development and sinking fund.
4) Outsourcing will not improve the life of the cleaner, road sweeper etc. If the town council manage themselves, the saving can translate into more into for the employees.
5) Outsourcing will only benefit a small group of people rather than as a whole.
In short, I don’t favour outsourcing of town council management to the MA, as outsourcing in my own view is a “dirty word”. Just take a look around us. Outsourcing had taken place everywhere, in IT, in cleaning industries, telemarketer, telephone operators etc.
In the town council, I hoped that be it PAP or WP to come clean why they need a MA in their town council which now have the conflict of intere