“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,” reports Channel NewsAsia.
“Peng Ming, the Huawei employee, was given four charges of corruptly giving gratifications, of which three are amalgamated. He also faces one count of cheating,” the article states.
Ng Kah Siang, an engineer at Integrated Health Systems Information (IHiS), faced accusations of attempting to obtain S$20,000 in bribes from Peng in November 2021. He faces five counts of corruptly obtaining gratifications. The charges mentioned that this was done as an inducement to advance Huawei’s business interests with IHiS, which has since been rebranded as Synapxe – a subsidiary of MOH Holdings, a holding company of Singapore’s public healthcare institutions that sits under the Ministry of Health.
On the conspiracy involving Peng, Ng, and Chiang Chee Seng – a senior sales director at Nera Telecommunications – it is stated that they conspired to give Ng and his wife gratification in the form of a sponsored trip to Paris worth about S$18,265 as an inducement to advance the business interests of Huawei and Nera with IHiS.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) revealed that Peng allegedly corruptly gave gratification on several occasions between 2020 to 2022 to an engineer employed with IHiS in the form of entertainment to advance the business interests of Huawei with IHiS.
“Singapore adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach towards corruption,” said CPIB. They advised organizations to implement robust procedures, particularly in areas such as procurement and internal audit, to prevent falling victim to corrupt acts by their employees.
The trio involved in the corruption case is yet to indicate if they will plead guilty or claim trial. The case is scheduled to be heard again on Mar 5. A corruption offence in Singapore carries a penalty of five years’ jail or a fine of up to S$100,000, or both.
