STATE investment vehicles Temasek Holdings and the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore (GIC) can afford to be more open about the thinking behind major investment decisions.

Mr Michael Palmer (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) urged this yesterday in a speech summing up the debate in the House over the past five days on the President's Address.

He said the statement made by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam to Parliament on Thursday was more open than Temasek's letter to the media a week earlier on May 22, even though both dealt with the same issue - the divestment of Temasek's stake in Bank of America (BoA).

Temasek's own statement did not put in perspective the overall gain in its portfolio over the years, while the minister's statement did.

Temasek's sale of its BoA stake in March was reported in the press earlier this month.

The estimated losses of between US$2.3 billion (S$3.3 billion) and US$4.6 billion led to a public furore and several MPs called on the Government to review the original charters given to Temasek and the other Singapore investment body, GIC.

Mr Palmer said he was reassured by Mr Tharman's response to MPs' questions on Temasek and GIC.

However, he felt more could have been done by Temasek and GIC to 'explain these issues of public interest clearly so that Singaporeans are made aware of the facts and have their questions answered'.

Mr Tharman had assured the House on Thursday that both Temasek and GIC monitor their investments very closely, but that they were ultimately long-term investors.

As a result, their performance could not be judged based on any one investment such as the 2007 purchase of Merrill Lynch shares, that were subsequently converted to BoA shares when BoA took over Merrill.

Temasek and GIC's performance had to be judged based on the performance of the whole portfolio over a period of time.

For example, the value of Temasek's portfolio grew by some $114 billion between 2003 and 2007. The economic crisis pared the value down by $58 billion last year. However, there was still a net value gain of $56 billion for the period 2003 to last year.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.