SINGAPORE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday turned up the heat on Workers’ Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang, saying that the latter cannot leave unresolved “grave doubts” about the integrity of WP Members of Parliament Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh.

In a strongly-worded statement — issued through the Prime Minister’s Office — Mr Lee said that if any of his People’s Action Party (PAP) colleague were found to have lied, “there is only one option — he has to go. If he is innocent, I will insist that he clear his name publicly.”

“The matter has to be resolved one way or other. It cannot be left as an ‘I say, you say’ matter of opinion, which leaves a permanent question mark hanging over his reputation, and the reputation of my government.”

Mr Lee’s statement — his first public comments on the matter — came two days after Mr Low rejected Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan’s call to further investigate actions that led to the high-profile dispute with the National Environment Agency over the cleaning of hawker centres.

Mr Lee pointed out that the dossier of documents circulated by Dr Balakrishnan in Parliament on Tuesday “directly contradict” statements Ms Lim and Mr Singh have made that the WP-run Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) and its contractor have not asked the hawkers to pay extra for the cleaning of high areas.

“The core issue is therefore honesty and integrity,” said Mr Lee.

He pointed out that Mr Low had in Parliament “promised to find out who had actually asked the contractor to quote for the cleaning” of the hawker centres, but “reversed course without explanation” the next day, saying he would not conduct further investigations.

“This is troubling, especially in the light of previous similar incidents,” Mr Lee said.

“In the Budget session last year, Mr Singh plagiarised an article from the Internet, passing it off word for word as his own speech.”

More recently, AHPETC “failed to explain” why it had appointed FM Solutions and Services to manage the town council without calling a tender and “at a much higher price than the prevailing rate”, Mr Lee said. FM Solutions and Services is a company owned and run by Workers’ Party supporters How Weng Fan and her husband Danny Loh.

Now, the company has tried to charge hawkers extra for cleaning the hawker centres and Ms Lim and Mr Singh — who are Chairman and Vice-Chairman of AHPETC — “have tried to cover it up”, charged Mr Lee.

On Tuesday, Dr Balakrishnan had said in Parliament that Ms Lim and Mr Singh had made “false and untruthful” statements on the matter. The next day, Mr Low called Dr Balakrishnan’s “grave charges” against Ms Lim and Mr Singh as personal attacks and questioned if the minister’s statement was “good politics for Singapore”.

“Mr Low is wrong to have done so,” said Mr Lee. “Good politics is, first and foremost, about integrity ... If we cannot trust a politician to tell the truth, then we cannot trust him or her to safeguard public funds, to put public interest ahead of personal gain, or to make decisions affecting the well-being and security of Singaporeans.”

“This is the standard that we must uphold ourselves to, and that Singaporeans have rightly come to expect from those in politics, whether in the Government or the Opposition.

“This is why we must take accusations of dishonesty against political leaders very seriously.”

Noting that any minister “must make sure that he is fully able to back up his charge” before he accuses anyone of dishonesty, Mr Lee reiterated that Dr Balakrishnan’s statement in Parliament “was not just his personal opinion, but the Government’s official position, which the Cabinet had approved”.

He added: “Mr Low cannot leave these grave doubts about the integrity of his fellow MPs unresolved. This is not how members of a First World Parliament should conduct themselves. Neither is this the sort of politics Singapore needs.”

The saga first surfaced in May when hawkers from two Bedok hawker centres claimed they were being asked to pay more to clean areas above 2.5 metres in height, which they did not have to do previously.

Mr Low on Tuesday attributed it to a misunderstanding of whether the exercise was annual cleaning or quarterly spring cleaning. Town councils must clean high areas in hawker centres in annual cleaning exercises but not in spring-cleaning exercises.

Asked about Mr Lee’s statement, the WP said last night: “We have noted the statement from the PMO just released this evening and we will be responding in due course.”

At a National University of Singapore forum yesterday, Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam was also asked about the matter during a question-and-answer session. Mr Shanmugam told the audience not to “form impressions without reading the documents”.

“Read the notes, ask yourself … Mr Tai (Vie Shun, AHPETC property manager) hasn’t responded, one of the two Members of Parliament didn’t say a word in Parliament in response to the allegations,” he said. “If a PAP MP has lied in Parliament, I think all of you will find it unacceptable ... I’m talking about PAP MPs, that is what is expected of us, that’s the system of integrity that we apply,” he added.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KOK XING HUI