Pofma order issued for NUS academic's commentary on CPIB's independence, PM Lee's handling of political controversies

SINGAPORE — A website called East Asia Forum was issued a correction direction on Wednesday (Sept 13) for publishing a commentary containing various false statements on recent political controversies in Singapore.

The article published on Aug 18 was written by a Singaporean academic from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

In a statement on Wednesday, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said that Ms Indranee Rajah, Minister in the PMO, has instructed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) Office to issue the correction direction to East Asia Forum over the article titled, “A spate of scandals strikes Singapore”.

East Asia Forum is a website that carries commentaries on politics, economics, business, law, security, international relations and society in the Asia-Pacific region. Its base is the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in the Australian city of Canberra.

PMO said that the article by Assistant Professor Chan Ying-kit from NUS contains falsehoods in relation to various matters, including the independence of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s approach in addressing certain matters.

NUS' website states that Assoc Prof Chan is with its department of Chinese studies and his research interests focus on Chinese history.

He graduated with a bachelor's and a master's degree in Chinese studies from NUS before obtaining a doctorate in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in the United States.

THE FALSEHOODS

PMO said that the article contained four falsehoods.

First, it falsely claimed that Mr Lee had conflated marital infidelity and corruption as well as equated three issues that the People’s Action Party (PAP) had faced with one episode of marital infidelity that the Workers' Party (WP) had faced. 

This relates to the extra-marital affair between former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and former PAP Member of Parliament (MP) Cheng Li Hui, a corruption probe on Transport Minister S Iswaran by CPIB and the rental of state properties by two Cabinet ministers.

WP MP Leon Perera and the party's senior member Nicole Seah had resigned over their extra-marital affair around the same time that the affair between Mr Tan and Ms Cheng was made public.  

PMO said that at a press conference on July 17, Mr Lee had given his views in relation to both the CPIB investigations and extra-marital affairs in response to a question posed to him by the media.

“Any concurrent mention of both the CPIB investigations and extra-marital affairs related only to the close proximity of the timing in which the incidents were made public, and not the substance of these incidents,” it added.

Mr Lee said in a ministerial statement in Parliament on Aug 2 that the Government took different approaches towards allegations of corruption or other wrongdoing in the discharge of official duties on the one hand, and cases involving misconduct in personal lives on the other hand.  

Second, the article also mentioned that the CPIB is not independent in deciding whether to carry out investigations because it reports directly to the prime minister alone; and that the prime minister alone has the power to refuse approval for CPIB to investigate, which PMO said is untrue.

It added that the article has omitted various safeguards put in place to ensure CPIB’s independence.

Third, the article falsely suggested that there was a cover-up of wrongdoing or corruption in having only former finance minister Richard Hu speak with the late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and then-deputy prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, in relation to their purchase of properties from Hotel Properties Limited.

PMO said that investigations had found no wrongdoing or impropriety by Lee Kuan Yew and his son Lee Hsien Loong and the matter was openly debated in Parliament in 1996, with full facts disclosed in ministerial statements. 

Fourth, the commentary falsely suggested that there was a cover-up of wrongdoing or corruption by having only Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean, and not CPIB, investigate the matter concerning the lease of state-owned properties on Ridout Road to Cabinet Ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan.

PMO said that the two ministers had asked Mr Lee Hsien Loong for an independent investigation into their respective rentals of the properties and the prime minister had tasked CPIB to conduct the probe.

Mr Teo was separately asked to establish whether proper processes had been followed and if there had been any wrongdoing.

Both CPIB and Mr Teo did not find any wrongdoing, and the matter was also debated openly in Parliament.

“While the author is free to express his views on the above matters, his article makes false and misleading statements while omitting key facts on these matters of public interest,” PMO said.

East Asia Forum will be required to carry a correction notice on its website and its Facebook page, with a link to the PMO's clarification.

The commentary also appeared to have wrongly featured a photo of businessman George Goh, who recently tried to run for the presidency in Singapore, even though he was not mentioned in the article.