SINGAPORE: Three Singaporean men, including a Huawei account director and an engineer at Singapore’s health tech agency, were charged with corruption as well as offences that include cheating on Wednesday (Jan 22).
Their alleged offences revolve around giving or obtaining bribes as inducements to advance business interests.
Chiang Chee Seng was handed one count of corruptly giving gratifications, while Ng Kah Siang faces five counts of corruptly obtaining gratifications.
Peng Ming was given four charges of corruptly giving gratifications, of which three are amalgamated, and he is also facing one count of cheating.
Ng, an engineer at Integrated Health Systems Information (IHiS), is accused of attempting to obtain S$20,000 (US$14,700) in bribes from Peng, an account director with Chinese tech giant Huawei, in November 2021, according to a statement by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB).
This was done as an inducement to advance the business interests of Huawei with IHiS, the charge read.
IHiS has since been rebranded as Synapxe. It is a subsidiary of MOH Holdings, a holding company of Singapore’s public healthcare institutions that sits under the Ministry of Health.
Ng, 37, also allegedly attempted to obtain gratification of 1 per cent of a vendor’s sales revenue and at least S$20,000 from a second vendor, as inducements to advance their business interests with IHiS, CPIB said.
Peng, 39, is accused of deceiving Huawei into believing that Ng and his wife were directors of IHiS in February 2022. This was done to intentionally induce Huawei to approve a sponsored trip to Paris for the couple, the agency added.
Between Mar 11 and Mar 20, 2022, Peng and Chiang, a 50-year-old senior sales director at Nera Telecommunications, allegedly conspired to give Ng and his wife gratification in the form of the Paris trip, which was valued at about S$18,265.
This was done as an inducement to advance the business interests of Huawei and Nera with IHiS, CPIB said.
“On several occasions between 2020 to 2022, Peng had also allegedly corruptly given gratification of about S$300 for each occasion in the form of entertainment to an engineer employed with IHiS, as an inducement to advance the business interests of Huawei with IHiS,” the agency added.
Ng is also accused of attempting to obtain gratification of 1 per cent of Nera’s sales revenue from Chiang on another occasion to further advance the business interests of the communications solutions provider with IHiS.
“Singapore adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach towards corruption,” said CPIB.
“Organisations are strongly advised to put in place robust procedures, in areas such as procurement and internal audit, to prevent falling victim to corrupt acts by their employees.”
A corruption offence attracts a penalty of five years’ jail or a fine of up to S$100,000, or both.
