Man jailed 3 weeks for offering S$100 bribe to stop LTA officer from seizing oBike bicycle

SINGAPORE — Even though two officers from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) warned Wong Swee Liang against trying to bribe them, he persisted in offering them S$100 so that they would not seize a shared bicycle that he was using. 

For this, Wong, 58, was jailed three weeks on Friday (Jan 29). 

The shipping executive was found guilty of one charge of corruption earlier this month, after a district judge rejected his claim that he initially thought the LTA officers were salvage contractors and he merely wished to buy the bicycle from them.  

Wong used the shared bicycle to shuttle between his office in Ubi and an MRT station.

His colleague sold him the black bicycle. He suspected that it belonged to bicycle-sharing operator oBike, even though its bicycles were typically painted yellow.

Court documents did not indicate how the colleague obtained the bicycle and how it became black.

The bribery incident happened on Dec 21, 2018. In June that year, oBike abruptly went into liquidation and exited the Singapore market, saying that it was tough to meet new rules under a licensing regime to tackle indiscriminate parking. 

The two LTA enforcement officers were near 51 Ubi Avenue 1 that day to collect abandoned oBike bicycles. 

Mr Norris Ang, who was wearing a lanyard showing his LTA authorisation card, identified himself to Wong. 

This was part of the agency’s protocol because the officers were in plain clothes.

Mr Ang testified that Wong first offered S$50 to him, saying that it was a pity that the bicycle would be sent to a scrapyard. 

Mr Ang rejected this, but Wong tried to offer the bribe again.

When Mr Ang told him not to do this as it constituted bribery, he persisted, looking through his wallet and raising his offer to S$100. 

He also said: “The bicycle is very good to ride and I give you S$100, and nobody will know.”

Mr Ang’s colleague Abdul Hakim Abdul Hamid corroborated this and took a photograph of Wong going through his wallet. He sent this to a WhatsApp group comprising the two officers and their supervisors, and wrote: “This guy is trying to bribe me and Norris.”

In convicting Wong, District Judge Salina Ishak ruled that the S$100 offer met the legal definition of gratification, intended as an inducement to the officer.

In a press statement on the case, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau said on Friday that bribing or attempting to bribe public officers was a serious offence. The bureau looks into all complaints and reports of corruption, including anonymous ones. 

For offering gratification, Wong could have been jailed up to five years or fined up to S$100,000, or received both penalties.