Man jailed for 12 weeks over bribes to secure contracts involving government agencies

Between 2016 to 2018, Ngiam Chee Chong paid a total of $37,400 in bribes. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG

SINGAPORE - In a bid to secure business contracts involving projects with government agencies, a company director paid over $30,000 in bribes.

Ngiam Chee Chong, 45, was jailed for 12 weeks on Thursday (Oct 29), having pleaded guilty to seven corruption-related charges earlier.

Another 13 similar charges were taken into consideration by District Judge Brenda Tan during sentencing.

Court documents state that Ngiam was the sole director of Emersion IT Services, which is in the business of setting up and implementing network services.

Between 2016 and 2018, he paid a total of $37,400 in bribes to Teo Joo Tye, 52, who was then working as a senior technical services manager for IT firm NCS.

He did so to reward Teo for recommending Emersion as a subcontractor of NCS to perform IT infrastructure works relating to 13 contracts, which involved various government agencies such as Singapore Customs.

These projects were subsequently awarded to Emersion.

At that time, Teo was responsible for the management and monitoring of NCS' projects with its clients from the public sector. He could also recommend subcontractors for projects requiring them.

Ngiam had also agreed to pay Teo a total of $9,300 in bribes for six other projects for which Teo had recommended Emersion and which Emersion was subsequently awarded.

But he eventually did not pay those bribes due to their negative impact on Emersion's profit margins, the court heard.

Ngiam also agreed to give bribes to 45-year-old Loh Kum Ming, who was a sales specialist for Singtel at that time, in 2017.

Tay Yew Kiat, 49, who was the business development manager of Emersion then, had arranged for Ngiam, Loh and himself to meet at a KTV outlet in Cuppage Plaza.

Tay told Loh that Ngiam would be willing to offer cash or anything of monetary value if he could recommend Emersion to Singtel for projects involving public Wi-Fi programme Wireless @ SG.

Ngiam said that "anything could be arranged" for Loh, court documents state.

Agreeing to the arrangement, Loh told Tay to lower Emersion's existing quotations for two projects and later recommended the revised quotations to his superior.

He also advised Ngiam on the quotations for two other projects in 2018, before recommending to his superior that Emersion be awarded them.

The court heard that Emersion was awarded all four projects, which were worth $18,671.50 in total.

The cases for Teo and Loh are still pending. Tay has been fined $30,000.

For each of his offences, Ngiam could have been jailed up to five years and/or fined up to $100,000.

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