Heng Suan Lim, a Malaysian businessman, enticed Bruce Grobbelaar, the Zimbabwean and then Liverpool goalkeeper, to throw away a match for £40,000.
This goes all the way back to 1994 to dig out dirt about Malaysians involved in corruption.
The Malaysian tentacles of corruption reaching across borders were rife even when there was no internet and forensic-styled investigative journalism.
It is not surprising that the Singapore billionaire Ong Beng Seng a Malaysian, was given a notice of arrest as reported on 14 July during an isolated probe carried out by CPIB, only proving the affirmation of the infamous cliché. There is a massive storm brewing in tiny Singapore, and it seems like our man Ong Beng Seng is sitting right in the eye of it for now.
The investigation was initially on the ministries under two Ministers in Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s cabinet regarding the Singapore Land Authority or SLA.
Minister K Shanmugam and Minister Vivian Balakrishnan holding the portfolios of Home Affairs and Law and Foreign Affairs, were the two in question in the Ridout Road properties.
Mysteriously, the involvement of a third Minister having nothing to do with the issue and his sudden arrest has spiralled into a sensational cloak-and-dagger affair rocking the little island.
The PM recently instructed the third Minister who held the portfolio for Transportation to go on leave to facilitate an investigation for allegations of corruption without the issuance of reasons by the PMO.
From just going on leave, the Harvard graduate, Minister Mr Iswaran, was arrested on the same day as Ong when the investigations conducted by the independent Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau heightened, and they were tight-lipped about their findings.
Kenneth Jeyaretnam, the leader of the Reform Party or the opposition, had commented on his blog about the two senior Ministers residing on Singapore’s prime real estate and if they could pay the rent at 31 Ridout Road and 26 Ridout Road.
This tiny island is where the luxury of living on a landed property was only a dream for the majority, and the houses in question were heritage homes.
The catch of the opposition was how these Ministers managed to reside in houses managed by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), a statutory board under the Ministry of Law and the purview of Minister K. Shanmugam.
There are only close to 500 black-and-white houses which are highly coveted places of residence that remain on the island today.
Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s statement prompted SLA, or Singapore Land Authority, to state that the rental of the properties was legitimate and no laws were breached by the SLA or by Ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan.
The statement made to clarify the issue sparked public attention, and the Prime Minister, who was on an official visit to Kenya at that time, summoned the CPIB to initiate further scrutiny.
The CPIB cleared the names of the Ministers, declaring that there was no evidence that either of them misused their powers or breached the law to rent and reside at the state-owned properties at Ridout Road.
However, after closer scrutiny by some news portals, a long list of doubts and discrepancies has surfaced, which may prompt the authorities to look deeper into it.
The houses were rented out to their wives by SLA and not directly to the Ministers, which contravenes the criteria requirements set by the SLA for tenancy.
Ong Beng Seng is a Malaysian billionaire and founder of HPL, which has a string of five-star-rated hotels. He is a resident of Singapore and is still not charged with anything yet.
He was given a notice of arrest and asked to fully cooperate with the CPIB in the ongoing investigations.
A notice of arrest is a citation given by a law enforcement agency to the person in question to indicate official contact between the two while investigations are conducted before deciding whether an arrest is warranted.
Therefore since the billionaire is not officially arrested, he still had to post a bail of S$100,000 with his passport impounded, but the authorities have allowed him to travel out of Singapore on business, and he will have to surrender his passport on his return.
Meanwhile, Minister Iswaran was officially arrested without any revelation of his charges; he, too, had his passport impounded, but in his case, he was not given the same latitude as Ong, which meant that he could not leave the country.
Transparency International has rated Singapore with a score of 83, where 1 is the height of corruption, so this Asian country is ranked 5th in the world for a clean administration.
This was devised by the father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, to keep the cabinet clean and efficient, which was that he made sure that all MPs and Ministers earned as well as those top people in the public sector.
Ministers in Singapore are paid a realistic and competitive wage without perks or an official house to live in. Nevertheless, a Minister can earn as much as S$1,100,000 annually and the Prime Minister S$1,500,000.
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