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Bigiron · 17-07-2023, 07:44 AM

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The July 14 arrest of billionaire tycoon Ong Beng Seng, one of Singapore’s richest men and a society fixture who brought Formula One Grand Prix racing to the city in 2008, may have stemmed from the rumored gift of benefits for Transport Minister S Iswaran related to keeping the race going in the city state, according to texts circulating in Singapore.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau announced Iswaran was under investigation for unspecified offences on July 12. Ong’s flagship company Hotel Properties Ltd in a prepared statement confirmed the 79-year-old magnate’s arrest, saying he had been “requested by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to provide information in relation to his interactions with Minister S Iswaran.”

“He will be traveling from 14 July 2023 and will be surrendering his passport to CPIB upon his return to Singapore,” the release added. In contrast, Iswaran is not allowed to leave Singapore while investigations into him are ongoing, said the Prime Minister’s Office.

Ong, who has had close political ties for decades in a city-state jealous of its reputation for political incorruptibility, has posted bail of S$100,000 and “is cooperating fully with CPIB and has provided the information requested,” the release said.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earlier confirmed the CPIB statement on his social media channels, saying he had been notified of them since July 5 and had instructed Iswaran to take a leave of absence until the investigations are completed.

The affair has been called Singapore’s most serious political graft probe since 1986, when Teh Cheang Wan, then Minister for National Development, killed himself rather than face charges of corruption, which he denied.

It appears that the affair may have originated in the London trial for fraud of former Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, who in June formally pleaded not guilty to a fraud charge over his alleged failure to declare millions of dollars held in a trust in Singapore to Britain's government. A source said the F1 accounts were adduced in evidence to prove corruption. One of the entries was said to be payment to Ong Beng Seng as his reimbursement for having paid for Iswaran's use of the VIP lounge of F1 in Singapore. A Singaporean is said to have spotted it and emailed the CPIB.

Given Ong’s ties to the island state’s ruling elite, the affair is also inconvenient for the long-ruling People’s Action Party, which is said to be gearing up for national elections well in advance of the November 2025 deadline imposed by parliamentary rules. Iswaran, 62, is a 22-year veteran lawmaker for the ruling People’s Action Party who has served as Transport Minister since 2021 and Minister of trade relations.

Ong, who owns hotels across the world, and his socialite wife. businesswoman Cristina Fu, are listed among Singapore’s 25 richest couples.

News reports said he recently secured an unprecedented seven-year contract for Singapore to continue the 15-year-old F1 race from 2022 to 2028, which blasts through surface streets in mid-September each year at speeds exceeding 325 km per hour. It is one of the major social events of the Singapore year, attracting fans from all over the world along with socialites of all stripes addicted to the glamor of high-speed racing.

According to other reports circulating in Singapore, which have not been confirmed, Ong allegedly organized a trip to the Silverstone track in the UK for Iswaran and a team from the transportation ministry in courting them to renew the annual race, which is a mixed benefit, generating debate on whether there is still value in hosting it.

While it has put the city on the world map and publicized the extravagant gaming and entertainment facilities in Sentosa, it costs S$150 million annually to produce, with the government picking up 60 percent of the cost. The Tourism Board said it draws as many as 350,000 visitors annually and generates hundreds of millions in receipts and sales.

Ong reportedly put the ministry staffers up in one of his London hotels and arranged a dinner in addition to the tickets to the concert by Adele, an English pop-soul singer-songwriter named Entertainer of the Year for 2012. The ministry team were said to be uncomfortable with the blandishments and all but one staffer were said ro begged off.

In Ong’s defense, the viral message alleged that as half of the Singapore side organizing the F1 Singapore Grand Prix, he had paid for the VVIP suite offered to Minister Iswaran, but then unwittingly claimed it as expense from his joint organizing partner, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

Further enquiries directed at reliable insider sources who had access to what was described as Ong’s “old boys’ network” also alleged Ong had provided advance notice to business bosses within his network regarding his renewal of the F1 race. His business contacts were then able to prepare in advance for bidding on Formula One-related contracts ranging from hospitality to construction and scaffolding before the tenders were officially announced.

Ong has courted controversy before, particularly in 1996, when his Singapore-listed firm HPL Ltd developed two prestigious condominium projects, one at Nassim Road near foreign embassies and opulent private mansions, called Nassim Jade, and another at Scotts Road in the heart of the Orchard shopping district, called Scotts 28. HPL was officially censured by the Stock Exchange of Singapore for failing to seek timely shareholder approval for the sale of some units in Nassim Jade and Scotts 28.

It later emerged that former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, his brother Lee Suan Yew, his eldest son the current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and other members of the extended Lee family had been given discounts by HPL for purchasing condos before other HPL shareholders were given sales access. Lee Suan Yew was a member of the board of directors for HPL. At that time, some Singaporeans privately expressed unhappiness over what they perceived was an unfair arrangement.

The ensuing affair embarrassed the Lee family, who said they were unaware they had been given discounts on the properties. It remains one of the most talked about sagas in Singaporean politics and society, and is said to have precipitated an inner political struggle between the Lee family and then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, whose faction lost.

Prime Minister Goh, instead of instructing the officially impartial CPIB, which directly answers to the Prime Minister’s Office, to investigate the discounts, instructed his own Finance Minister and Deputy Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore to do the investigations instead.

Multiple figures in Singapore’s political and civil service establishment including John Harding, the exiled Francis Seow, and Tang Liang Hong criticized the handling of the affair in the following years. Ong was compelled during the height of the affair to call a press conference and defend the discounted sales, claiming the discounts to the Lee family were “good advertisement” for HPL to be able to say that Lee Kuan Yew was a buyer of their properties. Tang Liang Hong’s criticism earned him a defamation suit and other retributions and he eventually exiled himself to Australia.

In a subsequent interview by the Business Times in Singapore after both Lees were cleared of any wrongdoing in Parliament, Ong lamented that the Nassim Jade scandal fuss was “damn unfair” to himself.

Wong Ming Jun contributed extensive research to this report

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore...f1-renewal

Bigiron · 17-07-2023, 07:47 AM

Senior Singapore Minister Caught in Scandal

Red meat for the opposition
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Singapore’s Transport Minister, S Iswaran, a senior member of the governing people’s Action Party leadership, is apparently under investigation for unspecified corrupt acts, according to a statement released earlier today July 12 by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). CPIB’s statement didn’t elaborate further, only saying Iswaran is “assisting” in the probe.

Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong confirmed the CPIB statement on his social media channels, saying he had been notified by them since July 5 and had instructed Iswaran to take a leave of absence until the investigations are completed.

Iswaran, 62, is a 22-year veteran lawmaker for the ruling People’s Action Party who has served as Transport Minister since 2021 and Minister of trade relations since 2018. He has held a long list of other leadership posts including Minister of Communications and Information, Minister for Trade and Industry and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2011 to 2014. Prior to entering politics, he worked in both the public and private sectors, including with the government’s sovereign investment fund Temasek Holdings and the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

“Singapore adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach toward corruption,” the CPIB said in its July 12 statement. “CPIB investigates all cases without fear or favor and will not hesitate to take action against all parties involved in corrupt activities.” Beyond that, there was no indication of what the agency is investigating and whether it is directed against Iswaran or other individuals.

With a presidential election looming in September, and a possible snap national parliamentary election expected well before the November 2025 deadline, the latest political scandal raises the question of whether a usually cowed opposition will rise to the occasion to exploit its chances. In the past, the opposition has been unable to capitalize on governmental missteps out of fear of being hit with defamation suits or accusations of violations of parliamentary rules by the overwhelming PAP majority, which holds an 83-11 advantage in the unicameral House, with nine nonpartisan members.

Political analysts believe early polls are in the cards because of growing economic headwinds that resulted in Singapore’s GDP growth forecast to slow to 1.8 percent in 2023, after growing at 3.6 percent in 2022 and with momentum clearly fading. Stubbornly high inflation has continued to dog the economy, hardly the government’s fault, as it has much of the industrialized world, from the holdover of the Covid-19 coronavirus crisis. There are also widespread complaints about housing prices, with unaffordability driving some renters across the Causeway to the Malaysian state of Johor.

In June, Prime Minister Lee directed Singapore’s Registration Officer to revise the Registers of Electors on or before July 31 to bring them up to date, ostensibly in preparation for the country’s presidential election, whose six-year term ends in September, separately from the parliamentary elections.

However, speeches in parliament by Lee and his designated successor, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, and growing district activity on the part of rank-and-file PAP MPs are being taken as cues for general polls before the end of the year, if not concurrent with the presidential one.

The announcement of the corruption probe into Iswaran’s activities is the latest shockwave to hit the PAP’s otherwise scandal-free public image. The CPIB was also involved in June with investigations into two other PAP heavyweight cabinet ministers, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Home and Law Minister K Shanmugam over a months-long controversy regarding the circumstances and finances surrounding their rentals of magnificent state-owned colonial bungalows on exclusive Ridout Road and whose grounds were renovated at state expense.

Although the two were exonerated from wrongdoing, competition to rent any property in land-scarce Singapore is enormous, raising public irritation and unprecedented questions as to how two civil servants – albeit some of the best-paid civil servants on the planet – got into them.

Singapore has from its modern founding by Lee Kuan Yew cultivated an image of ruthless concentration on rooting out public corruption, along with scrupulous attention to governmental efficiency. This is an image that is unique across Asia and one that has benefited the country as a home for investment by multinationals and turned it into a major global financial hub.

The last time a PAP minister was investigated for corruption, in 1987, Teh Cheang Wan, then Minister for National Development and one of then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s close comrades in the founding of the country, killed himself rather than face charges of corruption. Kuan Yew read Teh’s suicide note – addressed to him – on the floor of parliament, revealing that Teh was under CPIB investigation and saying corruption would not be tolerated.

The PAP suffered another public image setback earlier this week when a clip surfaced on social media of Tan Chuan Jin, the parliamentary speaker of the house and a concurrent PAP MP, calling the opposition Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim a “fucking populist” on a hot microphone during an April 17 speech.

Lim had been calling for the government to provide more help to Singapore’s urban poor, including the possible implementation of an official poverty line to facilitate effective targeted aid to those who needed it most. Following the viral spread of the muttered epithet on social media, Tan was forced to issue a general apology on Facebook for using “unparliamentary language.” Tan also privately apologized to Lim.

The probe of Iswaran’s affairs, coupled with the earlier embarrassments involving the three other PAP politicians, have thus dented the government’s carefully curated political image of stability and control at a time when the country is clearly gearing up for national elections far in advance of the end of the parliamentary term.

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/senior-si...an-scandal

Bigiron · 17-07-2023, 07:49 AM

Singapore Ministers Face Questions Over Rentals

No impropriety found, but public is angered

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Singapore’s austere, puritan government has run into a vexing political problem that has caught the public zeitgeist and won’t seem to die down. In May, it became known that Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan are living in magnificent colonial-era bungalows on exclusive Ridout Road which are owned by the government and whose grounds were renovated at state expense.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA), which rents out the properties, comes under the Law Ministry headed by Shanmugam although he maintained that he had rented the property through an agent in a hands-off transaction.

In a six-hour parliamentary session on July 3, both the government and the opposition ran rings around each other to point out that nobody had done anything wrong. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that an independent review of the rentals had been conducted after both ministers called for it and found nothing wrong.

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Balakrishnan and Shamugam on the pan

"Outrageous allegations were being made that ministers had enjoyed improper benefits and inside tracks, and were getting a sweet deal, and all sorts of very grave innuendos were being stated,” Lee was quoted on the floor of parliament Monday. “Now that the report has come out and all those grave suspicions have been dispelled, you focus on this question and you ask, should he have asked the deputy secretary? My view is, he could have done it a different way. He could have done it this way. He has given the House the reasons why he did it this way. I think those are cogent reasons, which I accept."

Indeed, although the legal t’s and procedural i’s appear to have been crossed and dotted, that hasn’t assuaged public irritation. The optics are awkward, in a city-state so crowded that everybody except the massively rich lives in a high-rise flat and where even the economic government-supplied flats, called Housing Development Board (HDB) flats, are getting expensive for many Singaporeans. According to reports, the property rented by Balakrishnan covers 136,101 sq ft – about the size of two standard-sized football fields. Shanmugam’s bungalow includes land from an adjacent property and totals 249,335 sq ft.

There are only about 500 such houses, known as “black-and-whites” for their characteristic combination of dark timber beams and whitewashed walls, in a city of 5.4 million people that is so crowded that the government has hauled in 130 sq km of sand from neighboring Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia to bring its size to 744 sq km. The Lion City remains the world’s 20th smallest country, ranking between Micronesia and Tonga.

Some 262 of these houses, once the homes of colonial panjandrums, judges, tycoons and timber and tin towkays, are now owned by the government. Competition to rent them is enormous, raising questions as to how two civil servants – albeit some of the best-paid civil servants on the planet – got into them.

Opposition leader Pritam Singh of the Workers’ Party, which was recently battered around the floor of parliament when one of its members was caught lying, quickly acknowledged there was no corruption or wrongdoing in the matter, as did other MPs in the opposition. Years of being browbeaten in parliament by leaders of the governing People’s Action Party (PAP) have made opposition members circumspect at best and timid usually. There were moves in the ruling PAP to force Pritam and other members of the Workers Party out of parliament over his party member’s misdeeds, making him even more cautious. Shanmugam was a particularly merciless interlocutor during the affair.

Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean, who headed the independent review, repeatedly told the House there was no potential conflict of interest over the homes, given that Shanmugam had recused himself from any decision-making on his rental.

Shanmugam, who as a minister makes more than S$1 million (US$741,000) per year, put up a fierce defense, claiming he was actually losing out financially by renting the bungalow at S$26,500 per month, and having to make up the rent sum from renting out his own fully-owned Good Class Bungalow, bought when he was in private practice as a Senior Counsel at the law firm of Allen & Gledhill, earning more than what he does as a government minister now, plus, he said, tapping into his savings.

“Based on my current income, I would not have offered to rent 26 Ridout Road. That is based on my personal approach to finances.” Rather, he said he had done it for family reasons. Shanmugam's annual rental cost for 26 Ridout Road works out to be just over S$310,000, perhaps third or less than his annual salary as a government minister.

'Total transparency'

Shanmugam said he made his choice so there was "total transparency" and that he and Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean, who conducted the review into the affair, also emphasized that the list of state properties available for rent is not privileged information or secret. Such lists, they said, are made available to "credible, prospective tenants" such as embassies, companies and businessmen.

"I could have approached SLA directly," Shanmugam said, according to local media. "But I asked the deputy secretary, a senior administrative service officer, so that (the Ministry of Law) knew and there was total transparency."

Teo said according to local media that it is in SLA's and the appointed managing agents' interests for state properties available for lease to be made known -- whether through the publicly accessible State Property Information Online (SPIO) portal, or other means such as a network of property agents. "(They) want to rent out these properties, so they want people to know about them," he said.

Teo cited an example of how in June 2019, the agency provided a list of more than 10 state properties up for lease in the form of a 22-page slide deck to a company looking to rent several properties for employees for its operations.

"This is not unusual, and it is not privileged information," Teo said, noting that the company did not need to pay SLA to get the list, contrary to Mr. Singh's assertion that individuals would have to go to considerable expense to access it.

Progress Singapore Party (PSP) Non-Constituency MP Leong Mun Wai also raised questions over whether the agency had offered other tenants of black-and-whites the same treatment as the two ministers, by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for preparatory work and allowing them to construct swimming pools and cut down trees, for instance.

He also asked Lee if he would commit to applying the ministerial code of conduct more stringently. Lee said Leong was trying to play up the fact that some ministers live in properties like good class bungalows (GCBs).

"What he really means is, should I or should I not allow ministers to rent GCBs, or to rent 'black-and-whites'? My answer is, I do not object," he said. "(Ministers) live within their salary. They live within their means... They comply with the laws, they do things properly. And most importantly, they continue to do their duties as a minister and to serve their constituents and to serve Singaporeans and to make a contribution to my team," he added.

Second Minister for Law Edwin Tong said there are reported examples of SLA spending more than S$500,000 on maintaining and refurbishing other black-and-white properties.

Although Prime Minister Lee declared Shanmugam and Balakrishnan committed no wrong regarding their abodes, many Singaporeans have expressed unhappiness with this saga on social media and online chat groups.

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/singapore...er-rentals

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 11:38 AM

I am Untoughable...I am Close to LKY. Tongue

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 12:11 PM

(17-07-2023, 11:38 AM)Tee tiong huat Wrote: I am Untoughable...I am Close to LKY.

Ong Beng Seng once said that he is untouchable because he is close to Lee Kuan Yew/Lee Hsien Loong.and Goh Chok Tong.

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 02:20 PM

Singapore’s Transport Minister S Iswaran and property tycoon Ong Beng Seng have been arrested as part of a corruption probe.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said on Friday night (Jul 14)

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a separate statement that the CPIB investigation would require Mr Iswaran, as well as other individuals, to be interviewed by CPIB.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapor...ts-3632186

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 08:47 PM

(17-07-2023, 02:20 PM)Tee tiong huat Wrote: Singapore’s Transport Minister S Iswaran and property tycoon Ong Beng Seng have been arrested as part of a corruption probe.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said on Friday night (Jul 14)

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a separate statement that the CPIB investigation would require Mr Iswaran, as well as other individuals, to be interviewed by CPIB.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapor...ts-3632186

CPIB Iswaran probe: Ong Beng Seng back in S’pore after being allowed to travel to Bali while on bail

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/c...le-on-bail

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 08:54 PM

(17-07-2023, 08:47 PM)Tee tiong huat Wrote: CPIB Iswaran probe: Ong Beng Seng back in S’pore after being allowed to travel to Bali while on bail

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/c...le-on-bail

Tycoon Ong Beng Seng returned to Singapore from Bali on a private jet on Monday afternoon after being allowed to travel overseas while on bail over his role in a corruption probe.

The plane landed at Seletar Airport at about 5.15pm.

Mr Ong, who was dressed in a polo shirt, jeans and sandals, was ushered into a black Audi sedan, which then sped off at around 5.30pm. He was accompanied by his wife, Mrs Christina Ong, when he boarded the car.

Airport security personnel did not allow reporters to get close to the Seletar Business Aviation Centre, from where Mr Ong was seen emerging, saying there was a private event going on.

Mr Ong left for Bali on July 14.

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 09:01 PM

(17-07-2023, 12:11 PM)Tee tiong huat Wrote: Ong Beng Seng once said that he is untouchable because he is close to Lee Kuan Yew/Lee Hsien Loong.and Goh Chok Tong.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/ar...tion-probe

Differing standards? Ong Beng Seng allowed to travel, S Iswaran asked to stay amidst CPIB investigation

Tee tiong huat · 17-07-2023, 10:44 PM

(17-07-2023, 12:11 PM)Tee tiong huat Wrote: Ong Beng Seng once said that he is untouchable because he is close to Lee Kuan Yew/Lee Hsien Loong.and Goh Chok Tong.

Niubee · 17-07-2023, 11:02 PM

i have seen cases where the bribe takers was sentenced more jialat than giver.

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