Former LTA official charged for bribes

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Former LTA official charged for bribes

© The Independent Singapore

Singapore — A former senior Land Transport Authority (LTA) officer was charged on Friday (July 24) with corruption involving S$1.24 million in loans from contractors and subcontractors.

Henry Foo Yung Thye, 46, was charged with 36 offences, including obtaining or attempting to obtain bribes in the form of loans from contractors or subcontractors.

Foo is also accused of corruptly attempting to obtain gratification in the form of a loan of about S$30,000 from a subcontractor of the LTA to advance the subcontractor’s business interest with LTA.

He is also charged with 13 counts of cheating his former colleagues in LTA into lending him money, which totalled roughly S$726,500, between 2008 and 2019. He had “dishonestly” concealed from his colleagues that the loans were intended to service his gambling habits and debts, charge sheets state.

This makes the total sum of the money involved across all of Foo’s charges almost S$2 million, Deputy Public Prosecutor Victoria Ting told the court.

The biggest single sum of S$200,000 was allegedly sought form Tiong Seng Contractors director Pay Teow Heng in June 2017 so that Foo would advance the contractor’s business interests with LTA.

Foo told the court that he intends to plead guilty to his corruption charges and asked the bail to be “a manageable amount”, adding that he wants to have some time with his children. The prosecutor told the court that none of the money lost in the corruption charges has been recovered so far.

Foo was offered a bail of S$250,000 and will return to court for a pre-trial conference next month.

Six other individuals, one company also charged 

The individuals are: Chinese national Cai Jungang, 56, director of Tritech Engineering & Testing (Singapore); Singaporean Zhang Xihu, 52, director of MEPT Engineering; Singaporean Pay Teow Heng, 52, director of Tiong Seng Contractors; Singaporean Pek Lian Guan, 55, managing director of Tiong Seng Contractors; Korean national Ro Sungyoung, 48, project manager of Daewoo Engineering & Construction; and Korean national Kim Young-Gyu, 51, project director of Daewoo Engineering & Construction.

They were each offered bail, with the lowest set at S$25,000 for Kim and the highest at S$200,000 each for Pek and Pay.

Pay and Pek allegedly conspired to give bribes in the form of loans of about S$350,000 to Foo, to advance the business interests of the company with the LTA.

China Railway Tunnel Group’s Singapore branch (CRTG) was also charged with three counts of corruptly giving gratification in the form of loans of about $220,000 to Foo as an inducement to advance the company’s business interest with the LTA.

Anyone convicted of corruption can be fined up to S$100,000, jailed for up to five years or both.

The maximum imprisonment term for each offence of corruption can be increased to seven years if it is in relation to a matter of contract with the Government or a public body, or a subcontract to execute work comprised in such a contract.

Anyone convicted of cheating or falsification of accounts can be fined and imprisoned for up to 10 years. /TISG

Source: MSN

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