Jail for man who delivered bribes to Singapore zoo's director, issued fake invoices to cover up corruption scheme

Source: TODAY
Article Date: 05 Sep 2024
Author: Taufiq Zalizan

Chong Yun Chia, a project manager, was involved a corruption scheme to help companies get contracts from Wildlife Reserves Singapore.

Chong Yun Chia, a project manager, was involved a corruption scheme to help companies get contracts from Wildlife Reserves Singapore
He delivered bribe money via go-between parties to a director at the Singapore zoo
He also issued fake invoices to cover up part of the money trail
The ocurt sentenced to him to serve around half a year behind bars

For about seven months in 2016, a project manager in the construction industry was part of a corruption scheme that helped a few companies unfairly get jobs from Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS).

The project manager, Chong Yun Chia, would deliver bribe money from his company through various agents to Barry Chong Peng Wee, a director at the Singapore Zoological Gardens.

The zoo was a subsidiary of WRS, now known as Mandai Wildlife Group.

Chong Yun Chia would also later issue false invoices to help another company cover part of the money trail in the scheme. He retained S$38,174 for his role in this part of the scheme.

On Wednesday (Sept 4), the 40-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to a jail term of four months and 10 weeks — about half a year. He was also ordered to pay a fine equivalent to the amount he retained in the offences.

He had earlier pleaded guilty to two charges of abetting by conspiring to give bribes and three charges of corruptly receiving gratification. Another 19 similar charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing.

WHAT HAPPENED

While he was employed with the zoo, Barry Chong, also known as Danial Chong, allegedly entered into a corrupt arrangement with Shin Yong Construction sometime in 2005 and later with a few other companies.

In exchange for some “monetary commission”, he allegedly aided these companies in getting jobs from WRS by advising them on the specific prices to bid for projects during the tender process.

Shin Yong Construction or the contractor that was awarded the job would have marked up the bid price and would give about 35 per cent of it to him as his reward.

KK Iron Engineering, a construction and renovation company, was recruited into this scheme sometime in 2015. Chong Yun Chia joined the company in January 2016.

Whenever KK Iron Engineering won a job from WRS, the company would pay commission to Barry Chong in cash.

Chong Yun Chia would help his employer To Chai Kiat to prepare the documents because To was not well-versed in English.

He would also hand the money to other agents involved in the scheme and they would then hand the bribe to Barry Chong.

Between March and October 2016, Barry Chong received a total of S$88,350. KK Iron Engineering was awarded multiple contracts with WRS valued at more than S$1 million.

Around the same period, Koh Kian Hee, director of construction company Geoscapes that was part of the scheme, had asked To of KK Iron Engineering to issue fake invoices to cover up the bribes that Geoscapes paid to Barry Chong.

He did not want to do it, but asked Chong Yun Chia if he wanted to do so instead and the latter agreed.

Chong Yun Chia then issued invoices from his company Onesta Projects, which he had jointly founded with To in 2014.

Onesta Projects would issue bogus invoices to Geoscapes for work that it had supposedly done for Koh's construction firm.

Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Kelvin Chong, Shamini Joseph and Darren Sim said in court documents: “The accused did so to help Koh mask the audit trail for commissions that Koh was corruptly giving to Barry for WRS jobs awarded to Geoscapes.”

As a reward, Chong Yun Chia was given a 5 per cent cut of the invoice amounts, as well as another 7 per cent, equivalent to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) value that Onesta eventually paid to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras).

In total, he received more than S$92,000. He retained S$38,174 and the remainder was paid to Iras.

The scheme was abandoned in October 2016 after the Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau began investigations into it.

JOINED SCHEME 'WITH OPEN EYES’

The prosecution sought a jail term ranging from seven months and 10 weeks to eight months and 12 weeks for Chong Yun Chia.

DPP Shamini argued that the accused played an “integral part” in KK Iron’s involvement in the bid-rigging scheme.

What the various parties did had caused WRS to lose about S$88,350 in the form of the inflated bid amounts. It also deprived other contractors to fairly compete for “lucrative jobs” amounting to millions of dollars, she added.

There was also some degree of sophistication and planning to the scheme, which involved multiple parties, took place over a significant amount of time and ended only due to CPIB’s probe, she noted.

Defence lawyer A Rajandran, in seeking a lighter sentence for his client, said that the prosecution had tried to paint Chong Yun Chia with “the same brush” as his employer To, whom the lawyer described as the “principal” offender from whom Chong Yun Chia took instructions.

With regard to the offences of false invoices, the accused did “nothing more” than issue those documents and was not involved in coming up with the conspiracy, the lawyer argued.

In his sentencing remarks, District Judge Eddy Tham Tong Kong said that Chong Yun Chia “clearly knew” that he was being asked to take part in an arrangement involving the payment of bribes.

Referring to the defence’s argument that he was merely carrying out instructions from his employer, the judge disagreed and added that the accused was “recruited” into the scheme.

“He could easily choose not to be involved. However, he decided to do so with open eyes.”

Chong Yun Chia also agreed to play a “pivotal” role in the false invoices scheme “knowing he has a material cut” of the sums of money involved, the judge said.

For their respective roles in the corruption scheme, To was sentenced to nine months’ jail in July this year and Toh Yong Soon, the project manager at Shin Yong Construction, was sentenced in May to three years and three months' jail.

The cases against Koh and Barry Chong are still pending before the courts.

For each count of abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to give bribes, or for corruptly receiving gratification, Chong Yun Chia could have been penalised with a fine of up to S$100,000 or jailed for up to five years, or both.