WP’s Leon Perera says sorry, retracts ‘inaccurate’ statements over Parliament video
Leader of the House Grace Fu (L) and Member of Parliament Leon Perera. Photo: Parliament
SINGAPORE — Blaming his “imperfect” recollection, Workers’ Party Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leon Perera apologised to Parliament on Monday (Jan 8) for making inaccurate statements alleging that national broadcaster Mediacorp had deliberately edited and removed certain parts of parliamentary footage.
Rising to speak at the end of question time in Parliament, Mr Perera also “definitively” retracted his statements at a parliamentary sitting on Nov 7 last year — where he said that the video in question had been edited with certain portions removed, and that Mediacorp had corrected it only after he intervened.
“I would like to apologise to the House for all incorrect recollections of the chain of events,” he said.
Still, Mr Perera stressed that he did not “deliberately misrepresent the facts of that incident” to Parliament.
He added: “I did not plan to raise this incident during supplementary questions. I did so off-the-cuff and only in response to the request to enumerate an incident of editing that I knew of. As it turned out, my memory of the incident was inaccurate.”
Mr Perera’s apology came less than a week after Leader of the House Grace Fu urged him to say sorry to Parliament for making the false allegations.
Apart from apologising, Ms Fu also asked Mr Perera to acknowledge that Mediacorp had explained the issue to him and he had accepted this long before the Nov 7 sitting.
Pressing the Opposition politician for answers after his apology on Monday, Ms Fu asked Mr Perera if he agreed that his allegations had misled Parliament.
Mr Perera reiterated: “I do agree that the statements were inaccurate, and therefore, misled the House. But it was not my intention to make an allegation against Mediacorp of having done partisan editing.”
In a parliamentary exchange on Nov 7 with Senior Minister of State (Communications and Information) Chee Hong Tat, Mr Perera claimed that some video recordings of Parliament sessions published by Mediacorp were edited.
He cited the example of a clip of the debates on the Presidential Elections Act in February last year, where “there were certain bits removed”.
“It was actually communicated with Mediacorp, and through the correspondence, they actually made the rectification and put up a different clip. So, I think that was resolved quite amicably,” Mr Perera had said then.
This prompted Mr Chee to seek a clarification on the timeline of events. Mr Chee pointed out that Mr Perera had written to Mediacorp on Feb 20 last year to ask why the clip had been truncated. The broadcaster replied that it was because of a technical glitch, and a full clip had been made available online on Feb 18.
Mr Chee subsequently took to Facebook to accuse Mr Perera of trying to “score political points” by implying Mediacorp had edited parliamentary footage in a partisan manner.
Mr Perera responded to Mr Chee’s Facebook post by saying he did not state that the footage had been edited in a partisan manner. Instead, his questions in Parliament had been about ownership of the copyright to parliamentary video footage and why live feeds of Parliament sittings could not be made available, as is the case in many other countries, he added.
On Monday, Ms Fu thanked Mr Perera for acknowledging his “misleading statements” and for his apology.
She added: “I would not want to read too much into his intention whether there was indeed (a) deliberate allegation against Mediacorp, but statements that were wrongly made in this House deserve (to be retracted) … so that the chamber (and) the members are able to benefit from the discussion and also to restore trust on each other’s statements.”
Ms Fu stressed that MPs are afforded parliamentary privilege to speak freely and raise different views, but this must not be misused to “misrepresent facts or mislead Parliament”.
The episode, she added, was a “timely reminder” for all MPs of “the high standards of integrity and honesty that we expect in this House”.
Mr Perera’s apology on Monday was not the first time MPs — including those from the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) — have apologised in Parliament over erroneous statements made in the House.
In March 2000, for example, former PAP MP for Tampines Group Representation Constituency Ong Kian Min had given the impression that a government-linked company had acted dishonourably regarding a business arrangement.
He apologised a month later after then-Finance Minister, Dr Richard Hu, laid out the facts of the case after an investigation, which found that the accusation had no basis.
