THE former chief technical officer of a National Library Board subsidiary was fined a total of $120,000 and ordered to pay a penalty of $94,689 for corruption.

Lim Seng Ping, 54, pleaded guilty to three of 14 counts of corruption involving $20,300. He has been managing director Astersoft since August 2000.

He was the chief technical officer of eLpedia when he obtained the bribes from Chia Chor Yam, the managing director of Knowledge Internet Solutions (KIS), in 2004 for recommending eLpedia to award KIS a manpower supply contract.

The case against Chia, 55, is pending. He was the managing director of KIS, which was set up in 1998 to develop software and writing programs.

The court heard that Lim, a former civil servant, was in charge of information technology matters in eLpedia.

He played an influential role in managing a team of technical support staff in administering the automated library management system of National Library Board (NLB). He was also in a position to award contracts to other parties whenever eLpedia needed to outsource components of its IT work.

Lim met Chia, his former secondary school classmate, at an IT fair in 2000 and exchanged contacts.

In early 2004, Lim told Chia that he needed manpower to work on projects in eLpedia. He and Chia agreed that in return for him recommending KIS to eLPedia, Lim would receive a 'cut'' from the profits earned by KIS.

Through his company, Astersoft, Lim billed KIS a certain sum of money every month in return for the recommendation.

Between May and August 2004, he received $6,300 and two payments of $7,000.

Eleven other charges were considered. He could have been fined up to $100,000 and/or jailed for up to five years on each charge.