Everything Also Complain

From ‘SCDF and CNG chiefs under CPIB probe’, 24 Jan 2012, article by Satish Cheney, insing.com

Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) Commissioner Peter Lim and Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) director, Ng Boon Gay are among eight officers being investigated by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, reported Lianhe Wanbao.

The report said Lim had been suspended for nearly a month while Ng has been questioned by CPIB officers. Six other SCDF officials including two high ranking ones are allegedly being investigated as well.

The Chinese daily reported that sources said the case is “linked to money and women.“

In a statement to the media, the Home Affairs ministry said both Lim and Ng are helping the CPIB with investigations into alleged “serious personal misconduct.”…Both Lim, 51, and Ng, 45, are Public Service Commission (PSC) scholars.

What is corruption without money and/or women, or rather SEX? An expected topple in the global corruption ranking aside (we’re currently fifth cleanest in the world), giving in to temptation while on public service duty is almost exclusively a male trait. Just last year a couple of SLA directors bought themselves fancy cars after embezzling millions. Barely a few weeks ago, a senior technical officer from NEA was jailed for accepting contractor bribes. But one organisation seems to fall prey rather readily to the pleasures of the flesh, in particular drug-addict flesh.

In 2008, a round of sex with a drug offender after her urine test landed CNB officer Phua Jun Yang with a sexual favours charge, breaching the Official Secrets Act while claiming his supervisee as his ‘girlfriend’. Similar cases of leniency in exchange for sex occurred in 1994 (CNB man helped drug user in exchange for sex, 9 May 1994, ST), and 2004 (Sexual favours from girls land CNB man in jail, 4 Sept 2004, ST).  Sex is also a bribe offered to ICA officers by China women caught for overstaying, but that’s another story altogether.

It turns out that a female IT exec from an American multinational company and some business with tenders were involved, and both men have admitted to having had ‘close working’ and ‘improper’ relations with the same woman. At some point you’d have to call a spade a spade and use uncomfortable terms like ‘sex, tryst, affair, mistress’. Sleaze avoidance is futile, no matter how high ranking the culprits are. The Chinese media managed to get a trashy lead on who this mystery woman might be; a 40-ish divorcee with kids who goes round flirting with men, wears low-cut tight clothing, and goes by the Hokkien nickname of ‘水查某 ‘, or ‘swee cha bor’, a come-hither compliment more befitting of KTV hostesses than IT execs. She later became a ‘36 year old’ beauty, now with a husband and believed to have had actual SEX with both men. Before you know it she could be young enough to pass off as their daughters.

I also managed to dig up an unfortunate photo of Ng Boon Gay with a huge paycheck at the recent CNB 40th anniversary held late last year.

The above event, part of a community outreach by CNB to family members affected by incarcerated drug offenders, was also the source of the following soundbite, probably the last you’ll ever hear of Ng in the capacity of a CNB director:

This donation drive shows that while CNB officers are entrusted with the task of enforcing Singapore’s zero tolerance against drug abuse, we empathise and understand the need to extend a helping hand to the families affected by their incarceration so that they can continue with their lives.

We also happen to have zero tolerance against corruption. Check out Peter Lim also holding a big cheque, and being presented with an award by Vivian Balakrishnan in this SCDF newsletter. Our current Minister of Environment once sang the praises of accused ex-MP Choo Wei Khiang as well. But wait, everyone’s so obsessed with the sex bits that perhaps there might not be any money being pocketed after all. People stumbling onto this blog have searched for smut like ‘ng boon gay sex video’ and ‘who is IT exec mystery woman’. In fact, you could start a blog with the tags scdf, cnb, ng boon gay, IT exec, sex and you could have 50 hits in a day at least.

Of course, the majority of CNB officers are honest-to-goodness workers and should be commended for preventing Singapore from turning into a Grand Theft Auto Vice City. They don’t have it easy, being exposed in their line of work to the dual temptations of drugs and sex, the latter a commodity that drug users are desperate enough to trade for under-reporting, if not free drugs. Under-reporting, incidentally, was what happened when the ‘Subutex effect’ was used to explain away miscalculations of drug arrests since 2008, presumably due to a ‘change of IT systems’. The error was uncovered when Ng Boon Gay was in charge last year. In fact, even for this case, both men were arrested at least 2 weeks before the news broke during CNY, which led to a Today writer lamenting about high salaries and how this was hushed from the public.

Whatever the outcome of this, it appears that our country with its whitewashed, hard-nosed rules and regulations is no longer as ‘clean’ as it was once thought to be, both literally and figuratively. It does, however, mean that the CPIB is doing a respectable job, and if it’s in fact capable of ferreting out white-collar felons whatever rank they are, then enforcement should be a better deterrent to temptation than an obscene paycheck.

Postscript(June 2012): Turns out that it was both SEX and MONEY involved. Peter Lim was the first to get charged to 10 counts of corruption, involved with 3 rather high-ranking women (directors, senior managers) , engaging in a range of ‘sexually gratifying’ activities, including a fling in a Paris hotel with Lee, as ‘freebies’ in exchange for tenders. It probably explains the many versions of the original ‘IT exec’. All except one party are married, and as much as one finds such tabloid filth entertaining, and disapprove of how the secret currency of sex has undermined the highest level of professionalism (and salaries) in both public service and the private sector, some thought should be spared for the families devastated by this incident.

The media seems to be preparing everyone for disappointment with its gratuitous portrayal of the 3 women. Here’s a sampling and their inspirations.

70′s seductresses

Dragonball

K-pop

Just a week later, Ng Boon Gay was hauled up to be charged for accepting sex for favours. The ‘It’ Girl of the moment turns out to be  a certain Cecilia Sue Siew Nang, whose description seems to fit the ‘swee zhabor’ angle of the Chinese media almost half a year ago. Her name was also tossed about in random forums in late Jan 2012, garnering more search hits than ‘book reunion dinner for CNY’. Which means the gossip-mongers were RIGHT (the name at least), though 9 out of 10 times wild rumours are grossly wrong. Ng plead NOT guilty while his wife continues to support him, the latter getting the least attention from the media, but ultimately the worst off of the three.

Filed under: 1990s, 2000s, 2011, 2012, Bureaucrats, Drugs, Justice system/Lawsuits, Money, Police officers, Sex Tagged: | bureaucrats, cnb, Drugs, justice system, Money, police, Police officers, scdf, Sex