Man conspires to bribe MOH agency employee with $18k Paris trip

New Paper

6 days ago

Two senior executives of different telecommunications companies worked together to give a bribe in the form of a Paris trip worth more than $18,000 to an employee of an agency under the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Court documents stated that Chiang Chee Seng, 50, was a senior sales director at Nera Telecommunications when he conspired with Peng Ming, 39, then an account director at Huawei International.
Deputy public prosecutors Eugene Phua and Andre Ong told the court that the pair worked together to bribe Ng Kah Siang, 37, who was then an engineer at Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), a wholly owned subsidiary of MOH Holdings.
The DPPs also said that Chiang and Peng committed the offence to advance the business interests of Huawei and Nera with IHiS, now known as Synapxe.
Chiang was sentenced to 11 weeks' jail on July 21 after he pleaded guilty to a graft charge.
The cases involving Peng and Ng, also known as Ronnie, are still pending. All three men are Singaporeans.
The DPPs said Chiang, who was an account manager at Huawei between July 2016 and October 2018, worked with Peng to introduce Huawei to public healthcare institutions in Singapore.
Chiang later moved to Nera but continued to work closely with Peng to secure projects from IHiS and other public healthcare institutions.
In November 2021, Peng found out that IHiS was going to renew a contract linked to a term deal in early 2022 via an open tender.
The deal would allow the public healthcare institutions the option to buy information technology equipment and solutions from approved vendors.
The DPPs told the court that the average annual procurement from two earlier contracts was valued at around $22 million in 2020 and 2021.
Ng, as the IHiS project manager in charge of the term deal, was involved in drafting tender specifications.
Peng got to know Ng in November 2021 and offered Ng a visit to Huawei's lab in Singapore to better understand the company's capabilities.
The prosecutors said: "Ronnie (Ng) instead requested Peng to sponsor him and his wife... an overseas trip in Europe, where Huawei has presence.
"Initially, Ronnie had asked to go to Rome, Italy, but changed his mind to Paris, France. Peng agreed to accommodate Ronnie's request."
Around this time, Peng introduced Ng to Chiang, who said he wanted to accompany the two men on the Europe trip as he wanted to increase Nera's chances of being a Huawei distributor to win the term deal.
The Paris trip in March 2022 involved nine people, including the three men and their loved ones.
According to court documents, Peng and Chiang did not wish to personally bear the cost of Ng and his wife's travel expenses.
The two men then agreed to falsely declare in a business trip proposal submitted to their respective companies that Ng's wife was an IHiS employee, when she was not, said the DPPs.
The prosecutors added: "Two months after the Paris trip and just before the tender specifications for the term deal were due to be published, Chiang and Peng received confidential tender documents on the morning of May 10, 2022, which they knew would stand them in a better stead to win the term deal."
Court papers did not disclose how the offence came to light but the DPPs said the offenders "were stopped in their tracks" when the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) arrested all three men the next day, on May 11 that year.
The court heard that Ng surrendered $10,000 to CPIB on May 14, 2022.
On July 21, defence lawyer Noelle Teoh pleaded for Chiang to be given between six and eight weeks' jail, saying: "He is acutely aware that a momentary lapse in judgment had placed both his own future and that of his family in jeopardy."
The lawyer from Gloria James-Civetta & Co law firm added that her client had suffered months of insomnia and frequent emotional breakdowns.