Pursuit of Excellence
We encourage our people to challenge themselves physically, intellectually and emotionally. Opportunities are provided for our people to overcome self-limitations and achieve stretched goals.
My AGD experience has been…
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"Exciting. I work with Ministries and the banks to ensure all Government’s cash needs for Singapore currency and foreign currency are funded on a just-in-time basis so that the return on Government’s cash is optimised. There are always exciting new projects in AGD; just recently, I was part of the team to develop and implement a new initiative to centralise the operating cash of Statutory Boards for active management to yield greater cost efficiency for the Whole-of-Government." |
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"Fulfilling. New constructions and buildings take up a large part of government expenditure yearly. At Treasury/Physical assets, we get to evaluate such large-scale projects (such as Singapore University of Technology and Design and Jurong General Hospital) and to provide perspectives from various stakeholders. All these are not done just behind the computer, we get to speak to other agencies, interview and learn from experienced “gurus”, and conduct site visits to know the real situation on the ground. For example, when we did the Review of Parks Connectors, the team gets to cycle round the park connectors to have a sense of the utilisation and level of satisfaction from the public." |
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"Pleasant. It is great to work in teams, having people coming together to brainstorm ideas and new perspectives. And of course, things get done faster with more hands around." |
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"Full of adventure! Working in AGD goes beyond looking at numbers and balancing the trial balance. As AGD provides audit services to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I get the chance to travel to the different Overseas Missions around the world. Through the overseas mission audits, I experience different cultures and the different operating environments and challenges faced by the Overseas Missions." |
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"Challenging but satisfying. Being the Central Systems Administrator, it is a challenge to meet all our customers’ requests without compromising the security, confidentiality and integrity of the systems. We will explain the security concerns and suggest alternatives to them if their requests cannot be met." |
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In AGD, we believe in knowledge sharing. Ample opportunities are given to allow officers to share the knowledge gained
with more officers. These are done at forums such as AGD Staff Meeting, AGD Learning Day and Ad-hoc sharing sessions.
Recent sharing:
Greek Debt Crisis (May 2010)
AGD also offers interns opportunities to work alongside experienced AGD officers, participating in a wide variety of challenging and interesting projects. The AGD internship programme received accolades for providing valuable and practical work experience.
“My internship at AGD is undoubtedly one of the best internships that any JC student could hope to be offered.
As an intern, I was given the freedom to pursue the research projects that best suited my interests. Mentors and
other staff also went out of their way to ensure that the process was a meaningful and enriching one.
Besides research, it was an eye opening experience to participate in AGD's schemes which involved other governmental organizations. I was also given the opportunity to venture out of the office for site visiting which was a very exciting and fun-filled endeavour.
All in all, being at AGD is definitely an amazing experience. The warmth and care of the staff at AGD is definitely a rare find and I will definitely be remembering the people, and the many events and activities for years to come.”
“My internship at Accountant-General’s Department was indeed a fruitful and meaningful one.
Firstly, I am definitely more aware of accounting and finance related work in the Public Sector.
Working alongside experienced officers and participating in a wide variety of challenging and interesting
projects has strengthened my resolve in committing to a path of finance and business.
Secondly, I have developed useful research skills which will aid me in my future endeavours. One of the projects which I participated in was the research on Singapore’s Property Market. I had to analyse the information obtained from websites and use them to make valuable insights. From coming up with predictions about Singapore’s property cycle to examining why Singapore’s property market is more volatile than other countries, I have learnt a great deal and developed new insights and perspectives into the property market.
All in all, I do not regret coming for this internship as the time spent was one which I discovered more about the working world and in particular, the financial sector of Singapore.”
“On my first day of my summer internship, I was quickly settled down and assigned a mentor who briefed me through my first assignment.
Although I had not undergone any training and certain jargon seemed foreign, the patience my mentor exuded gave me the confidence to clarify any
doubts or queries that I had. While there was minimal supervision, I was able to work independently and met all stipulated deadlines. Such mutual
trust is conditional for team work and within days, I felt assimilated as part of the treasury team.
As the treasury team worked closely with other branches in the office, I made many new friends who candidly shared their experiences and gave me career
advice. It was during ALL day that I experienced the solidarity of the whole department as busy colleagues took time off to organize the get-together session,
peppered with fun-filled activities meant to forge closer working relationships. Despite my internship stint being only 3 weeks, this is one occasion where I feel
that the internship duration is inversely proportional to the quality of experience- it was an eye-opener into what public sector accounting entailed and I realized
that there is so much more to learn!”
“A colleague once told me, The work that we do here is very different from what you would do in the outside world of auditing."
Indeed, unlike the regular financial audit work that follows a stipulated set of protocols, the audit reviews here in AGD are much less
structured and more varied largely due to the very nature of the work. There is a lot of value judgement involved and it is up to one to analyse
the situation, formulate and defend a sensible methodology to go about performing the audit review. My eight-week stint here at AGD has allowed me
an opportunity to hone these invaluable skills.”
“My internship stint at AGD has enabled me to learn more about value-for-money audits as well as the relevant auditing
knowledge and skills set used in the auditing profession. AGD has a people-oriented culture that is receptive to feedback and
the cohesion within the family makes working a lot easier and enjoyable. It is gratifying to know that interns’ ideas and inputs
are valued by the working partners and superiors, and that much of the work that interns do are useful in substantiating the final
recommendations. Despite having worked at AGD for a short period of only 3 months, I feel assimilated into the AGD family after taking
part in their weekly jogging sessions and the monthly staff meetings. This internship has provided me with an alternate perspective of
accounting in the public sector and it has been a truly rewarding and fulfilling experience for me.”
