THE leadership of the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) has no plan to initiate legal or any other action to recover expenses incurred by the previous executive committee during its short term in office.

Aware president Dana Lam said on Monday that her 12-member committee, elected at a May2 extraordinary general meeting, did not intend to pursue the matter as they wanted to move on and close the chapter as quickly as possible.

It was reported that Aware's previous exco, led by bank executive Josie Lau, spent about $100,000 in the five weeks it was at the helm of the women's advocacy group.

This did not adhere to Aware's Constitution, which states that $20,000 is the upper limit of what the exco is authorised to spend in a month. It has to consult members if it intends to spend anything higher than that.

But Ms Lam said at a press conference on Monday: 'We want to get on with our work, which is to identify and help remove obstacles that prevent women from realising their full potential.'

The amount spent was confirmed after an internal review team looked into the expenses incurred by the exco which Ms Lau headed.

It found that the bulk of the expenses - some $99,291.28 - went towards paying the costs involved in organising the May2 meeting at Suntec City which was attended by about 2,300 members of Aware, said Ms Lam. Another $3,000 was spent on daily operations, as well as on an alarm system that Ms Lau's team installed at Aware's Dover Crescent office.

But much of the expenses was covered by the $98,765.70 in membership fees collected from the 2,478 people who joined Aware or renewed their membership status.

Membership in Aware - which stood at about 300 - spiked from the time Ms Lau's team took over at the March28 annual general meeting till the May2 meeting at Suntec where the so-called 'Old Guard' and their supporters ousted them.

The money spent in the five weeks that Ms Lau's team was in charge represents about a quarter of what Aware usually spends annually. This figure is about $400,000, honorary treasurer Tan Joo Hymn said on Monday.

Please read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times