SINGAPORE: A former engineer at Singapore’s health tech agency Integrated Health Systems Information (IHiS) was jailed on Thursday (Jul 31) for taking bribes in the form of a trip to Paris worth more than S$18,000 (US$13,900).
He took the bribes from two directors of IT firms who wanted to win a multi-million-dollar bid supplying equipment and maintenance services with IHiS.
Ng Kah Siang, a 37-year-old Singaporean, was sentenced to jail for five months and two weeks, after pleading guilty to three charges of corruptly obtaining or attempting to obtain bribes under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Another two charges were taken into consideration.
The court heard that Ng, also known as Ronnie, was an engineer working for IHiS, whose vendors provide IT products and services to all the public healthcare institutions in Singapore.
IHiS, now known as Synapxe, was the national agency supporting the tech needs of the public healthcare sector and is a wholly owned subsidiary of MOH Holdings.
IHiS’ open tenders were generally of a substantially higher value compared with tenders in the private healthcare sector, given the relatively larger budgets IHiS had to invest with.
Ng was part of IHiS’ project team which facilitates procurement and was in charge of contracts with vendors.
He was assigned around November 2021 to be the project manager in charge of a “term deal”, where IHiS was going to renew its master contract for certain network equipment purchases and maintenance services via an open tender.
The term deal would allow the public healthcare institutions the option to purchase IT equipment and solutions from the approved vendors, using public funds.
The incumbent brand used by IHiS at the time was Cisco. The term deal was meant to consolidate the two existing term contracts covering Cisco equipment purchase and network equipment maintenance services for all Singapore public healthcare institutions.
The average annual procurement from those two contracts were valued at about S$22 million a year for the years 2020 and 2021.
As project manager in charge of the term deal, Ng was involved in drafting tender specifications. He was also responsible for putting up the pre-procurement approval paper to his superiors to seek approval for the conduct of an open request for a proposal to establish the deal.
Ng was told by his superiors that they wanted more competition for the term deal and asked him to approach different brands to sound them out on the deal and find out who their preferred system integrators were.
NG MEETS HIS CO-ACCUSED
Around November 2021, Ng was introduced to Peng Ming, an account director of Huawei in charge of the Singapore healthcare sector.
He told Peng that he was one of the IHiS staff in charge of drafting tender specifications for the term deal and asked what Peng could do for him if Ng helped Huawei to be included in the upcoming IHiS tender requirements.
Peng, a 39-year-old Singaporean also known as Michael, asked Ng what figure he was looking at, and Ng replied S$20,000.
Peng did not accept this request. Ng made it seem like he would ensure Huawei would be shortlisted if he was given gratification.
Ng was part of the panel which evaluated the presentations given by the respective brands, which included Huawei and Cisco, to IHiS.
Peng offered to organise a trip for Ng to visit Huawei’s lab in Singapore to better understand Huawei’s capabilities.
Ng rejected this as he found Huawei’s lab at Changi to be too far from his office in Serangoon North, and there was “nothing to entice him” to travel the distance.
Peng later offered to sponsor a trip for Ng to a country where Huawei had a presence. Ng initially asked to go to Rome in Italy with his wife, but later settled on Paris, France, and Peng agreed.
Peng introduced Ng to co-accused Chiang Chee Seng, a senior sales director of Nera Telecommunications. The company was one of Huawei’s preferred systems integrators, Peng said.
Chiang, 50, was Nera’s agent overseeing the public sector account involving Singapore public healthcare institutions.
Peng allegedly told Chiang that they needed Ng’s help to ensure Huawei was shortlisted to be awarded the term deal.
Chiang expressed his interest in accompanying the pair for the Europe trip, as he too wanted to increase the chances of his company, Nera, being the system integrator and tier-2 distributor of Huawei to win the term deal.
Both Chiang and Peng viewed IHiS as an important client. They therefore conspired to corruptly give Ng and his wife an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe, including the expenses for flights, accommodation, food and tour attractions.
They did this so Ng could help their companies win the term deal.
Chiang created a WhatsApp chat group in February 2022 titled “Private Tour to Paris”. The three men and their families then went on the trip in March 2022.
In order to have their companies bear the costs of Ng and his wife’s travel expenses, Peng and Chiang falsely declared in their respective business trip proposals that Ng’s wife was an employee of IHiS, when she was not.
The value of the Paris trip received by Ng and his wife was S$18,188.15.
AFTER THE TRIP
After returning from the trip, Ng asked Chiang for a gratification of 1 per cent of Nera’s sales revenue if Nera was awarded the term deal. However, Chiang rejected him, saying Nera was a listed company.
Meanwhile, Peng contacted Ng and asked for the tender form for the upcoming term deal, as he wanted to prepare it early and stand a better chance.
On May 10, 2022, before the specifications were to be published later that week, Ng met Chiang at a coffee shop and passed him the specifications to share with Peng.
The Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau (CPIB) received information on the corruption and arrested the three men in May 2022.
Ng surrendered S$10,000 to CPIB that same month. He later surrendered the rest of the sum he had received.
The prosecution sought six months’ jail for Ng, calling him the “primary mover” of the scheme who acted for financial gain.
SENTENCING ARGUMENTS
Deputy Public Prosecutors Eugene Phua and Andre Ong said Ng took advantage of his position to actively gain corrupt gratification over seven months.
During this period, he attempted to obtain gratification from various IHiS vendors on five occasions, succeeding in only one of these attempts, which resulted in the trip.
The biggest prize he sought was a cut of the revenue from the term deal, but he was stopped because the vendors did not agree to his proposals and CPIB arrested him, said the prosecutors.
Defence lawyer Mato Kotwani sought 12 weeks’ jail instead, saying this was something Ng regrets and is deeply remorseful about.
Ng has surrendered the full sum of over S$18,000 and has a very young child at 17 months of age, said the lawyer.
He referred to a CNA article where IHiS said in a statement that Ng’s actions did not result in any financial loss or procurement irregularities, and that the integrity of its operations remained uncompromised.
The lawyer said that it was very likely that IHiS would have accepted the tenders of Nera and Huawei for continuity reasons, adding that his client never disclosed a confidential list to the two men.
Chiang was sentenced last week to 11 weeks’ jail, while Peng’s case is pending.
