Chee Hong Tat spars with WP MPs over retroactively validating fees collected by MND's agencies, WP opposes bill

MPs from the Workers' Party (WP) voted in opposition to the Statutes (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill.

The Bill, which was read in Parliament on May 7, proposed amendments to several Acts.

Among them was a proposal to "perform essential legal housekeeping", that certain fees and charges, imposed by statutory boards under the Ministry of National Development (MND), be prescribed in legislation.

Under the amendment, past collections of these fees would also be retroactively validated.

During the debate, several WP MPs — including secretary-general Pritam Singh and party chair Sylvia Lim — raised concerns over the past collections of these fees, questioning their legality.

They ultimately voted in dissent of the Bill.

"As the Opposition, we come to this House to scrutinise bills, and it is our duty to ask these questions," Singh said during the debate.

Fees and charges

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for National Development Syed Harun Alhabsyi said the fees in question were collected over the years from MND statutory boards.

These included the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), Housing Development Board (HDB), National Parks Board (NParks), and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

The fees were introduced over the years for the provision of specific services, to support residents' and industries' needs, and collected as administrative charges.

Some of these services include the expedited inspection of buildings, the processing of Temporary Occupation Permits by BCA, NParks’ animal permits and species certifications, administrative fees charged by HDB, and the recovery of expenses by HDB and URA for the immobilisation, towage and detention or storage of illegally parked vehicles.

But these fees were not "formally prescribed" in legislation, Syed Harun said.

After a 2025 review, conducted by MND in consultation with the Attorney-General's Chambers, MND was advised that the fees should be provided for in legislation.

This would provide the agencies with the "legislative backing" to collect the fees and fulfil their statutory functions.

Despite this, past fees were "appropriate and charged in good faith, for services that were duly provided", Syed Harun told the house.

"MND has chosen to bring this issue to Parliament as we are open and transparent about the matter.

The fees charged were appropriate, not wrongly collected, and we are validating to ensure that this is, moving forward, aligned with legislation."

Questions raised

During the debate, MPs from both the WP and the People's Action Party (PAP) asked about the fees, including the reasons for their collection, and their legality.

WP MPs also asked if there were plans to refund these fees, like with the GST refund in 2024.

But Syed Harun clarified that in that case, those taxes were collected in error, as they were "genuinely wrongly charged" and "collected against policy intent". Only the GST was refunded and not the actual tax itself.

In comparison, the MND fees were charged in line with policy intent, and as such the ministry has no plans to issue refunds, he said.

In response to the clarification, Aljunied MP Fadli Fawzi argued that the Bill would effectively "now and forever extinguish the ability of those affected to claim any sort of financial restitution from the government".

He also pointed out that it remains unknown the number of people affected, and the amount of money concerned.

"Are we talking about hundreds of thousands, or hundreds of millions of dollars?... These are not obscure transactions, but routine transactions which affect a huge number of people, a huge number of citizens of Singapore," he said.

"I think it is important to know this information before we decide on the matter."

Syed Harun subsequently emphasised the need to "frame this Bill amendment appropriately".

"The member frames it as having those affected, whereby it seems to suggest that there was a mistake made in the past, and therefore we're trying to correct it, and something that we've done in the past seem to be egregious in that sense.

But the spirit of this bill is really about making sure that we move forward with the legislative backing and mandate for our agencies."

Collected since independence

Singh later repeated the question about the numbers, to which Syed Harun was seen pausing for several moments to flip through his notes in front of the house.

"I beg your indulgence, Mr Speaker," the Nee Soon MP said.

Syed Harun said while he did not have the "collective amount", the quantum of the fees concerned range from S$3.27, for the renewal of a policy under the HDB fire insurance scheme for owners who default in renewing the policy, to S$545 for an application for HDB's consent to sell a commercial property not under the lodgement scheme.

Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat subsequently spoke up to clarify that the ministry does not have the "full accurate record of all the amounts collected", as the fees "were collected over a long period of time... since independence".

"It's not that we do not want to give you a number, it's that, I hope you understand, these fees were collected over a long period of time," he said.

Singh said that he did not know that the fees went back to independence, but explained that it was the WP's duty "to ask those questions", as the Opposition.

Legality

WP MPs also questioned the legality of the past collections, and asked "on what legal basis" did the agencies impose these fees or charges.

At one point, Aljunied MP Gerald Giam asked if the government would be prepared to refund the fees or allow claimants to make a claim, given that the fees were "illegally collected".

But Chee reiterated that the fees were not illegally, wrongly, or inappropriately collected.

"I have explained why. Services were provided, costs were incurred.

We were trying to recover the cost of providing these services, so there isn't a wrong collection that we are required to refund, or that we should refund."

He added the Bill seeks to make the collection of fees clearer, with "less ambiguity", and also to validate past collections.

Properly authorised by Parliament

In response, Lim, who is also an Aljunied MP, said they were "not denying that services were provided and residents had benefited from the services".

"And I also would say, that we do appreciate that MND did this internal review to uncover this problem, if I can say that," she said.

But she pointed out that it is "an important safeguard for citizens" that the government acts in accordance with its legal authority.

"One of those principles is that if the government is going to collect money, like taxes, fees from the citizens, then it has to be properly authorised by Parliament.

So the fact of the matter is that those past collections were not authorised, and that's why AGC has said that they should have been prescribed, and that's why we're here today."

Chee then clarified that it was not that the agencies were "unauthorised" to collect the fees, but rather a matter of their classification.

If fees are classified as administrative, then they can be collected by agencies. But since the fees in question were considered regulatory, it was "more appropriate" that they were put into legislation, he said.

"So that's what we have done," he said.

In response to a further clarification by Singh on whether it was the AGC's position that the fee collections before this were illegal, Chee reiterated:

"We don't want to leave this loose end unaddressed about a past collection... This is what we are proposing, to validate these past collections.

Because they were treated as administrative fees in the past — not that they were illegal or inappropriate or wrongly collected... but for avoidance of doubt, and to reduce ambiguity, it is better to bring it before the house and to validate those fees through this Bill."

He also asked for the support of the "whole house" moving forward.

11 MPs disagreed

At the second reading of the Bill, the 11 WP MPs present, including those who had spoken in the debate, rose in dissent.

Singh asked for their dissent to be recorded.

They repeated this in the third reading of the Bill.

This marks the first time in this term of Parliament that the WP has opposed a Bill.