Wildlife Reserves Singapore ex-manager admits taking S$51,750 in bribes for her silence on price-fixing

SINGAPORE: When a manager at Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) discovered that contractors providing services to her company were engaging in corrupt price-fixing, she was offered a bribe for her silence.

Though she initially rejected the stack of S$50 bills, the long-time employee later took up the bribes and received S$51,750 over five years, including luxury bags.

Chin Fong Yi, 44, pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Jan 26) to 12 charges of corruptly obtaining bribes and using criminal proceeds to buy items, with another 67 charges taken into consideration.

The court heard that Chin was an employee with WRS from May 2008 to February 2017. She started with the maintenance department, progressed to the estate management department in 2010 and became a manager of the facilities department in 2015.

Her duties across roles included project coordination, upgrading works, drafting job specifications and sourcing quotes from contractors.

The company linked to Chin's case is Shin Yong Construction, a construction firm overseeing civil engineering projects and a long-time contractor of WRS, its main client.

Since 2005, the director of facilities management at the Singapore Zoological Gardens, a subsidiary of WRS, had an arrangement with key personnel of Shin Yong Construction.

Shin Yong Construction and linked contractors would bid for WRS projects and pay "commissions" to the zoo's facilities management director, 54-year-old Barry Chong Peng Wee.

In return, Chong would send job specifications to Shin Yong Construction foreman Too Say Kiong, 56. Too would ask his group of contractors to put in quotes for the project, and present the collated quotes to Chong and his managers. The project would usually be awarded to the vendor with the lowest quote.

SHE SUSPECTED PRICE-FIXING AND ASKED ABOUT IT

Sometime in 2010 or 2011, Chin noticed that the prices on the quotations submitted by Shin Yong Construction and its group of contractors were very close to one another.

She suspected that the contractors were engaging in price-fixing with Chong in exchange for some form of financial benefit. She met Too and asked him if there was such an arrangement.

Too told her to "keep quiet and close one eye", and offered her a stack of S$50 notes, which Chin understood to be a reward for her silence on the arrangement.

Initially, she rejected the money and left, but Too met her on another occasion and offered her another stack of S$50 notes. Chin asked Too what the money was for, and Too told her that her boss Chong was taking money. He asked her why she did not wish to take money as well.

Chin asked Too if the contractors had fixed the prices of the quotations among themselves, and he confirmed this. After hearing that her boss Chong was receiving money from Too, Chin also accepted the money. She knew it was a reward for her refraining from reporting that Shin Yong Construction was giving corrupt bribes to Chong.

THE CORRUPT ARRANGEMENT

After this, Too settled into an arrangement with Chin to give her money monthly for her silence. He typically passed her the money in an envelope at the water treatment plant at the zoo.

Between April 2010 and April 2015, she received S$500 in bribes every month. In May 2015, she was given S$20,000, and in August 2014, she received a black Chanel wallet worth S$1,250 after telling Too's relative that she liked the wallet very much.

On 16 occasions, she used the bribes she received to buy luxury handbags and other items.

When the authorities caught wind of the crimes, they seized receipts and bank statements as well as multiple luxury bags from Chin.

With her consent, they sold most of the seized items for S$8,773, handing over the sales proceeds to the Accountant General.

The prosecutor called for nine months' jail and a penalty order of S$51,750, the amount of bribes Chin received.

She turned a blind eye to the fact that WRS' contractors were giving bribes to her supervisor, and received bribes of her own that she used to buy luxury bags, said the prosecutor.

Defence lawyer Chung Ting Fai concurred with the prosecution on the nine months' jail sought for. However, he asked for a lower penalty order.

He said his client had provided her full cooperation to the authorities, surrendering all the luxury items she had that were related to the crimes, and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Chin will return to court for sentencing next month. The other cases are pending.