2 ex-company directors convicted over $25k bribe paid to then Wildlife Reserves S’pore manager
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Neo Chye Koon (left) and Wong Chee Thiam at the courts in March 2022. They each pleaded guilty to a graft charge on Oct 13.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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SINGAPORE – Two directors of a company dealing with stainless steel fabrication worked together to give a $25,000 bribe to a senior project manager at Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS).
The prosecution said that Neo Chye Koon and Wong Chee Thiam from Magnum Precision Industries agreed to hand the monies to Goh Meng Kwee
Deputy public prosecutors Eric Hu and Yeow Xuan stated in court documents: “As a result of the favour shown by Goh following the... corrupt payment... Magnum derived substantial business advantage by securing at least three projects cumulatively worth (nearly $446,500).”
Neo and Wong, both 54, who are no longer directors at Magnum, each pleaded guilty to a graft charge on Friday.
At the time of the offences, Goh, 51, was from the exhibit design department of WRS, now known as Mandai Wildlife Group. He is no longer with the firm and his case is pending.
Neo first got to know Goh at a social gathering in 2016.
About one to two months later, Goh contacted Neo and told him that there were jobs for offer at the zoo. All three men later had a meeting and Goh offered to invite Magnum to tender for these jobs.
The prosecutors said that Goh also offered to guide the pair on the tender process if they were willing to pay him $50,000 for items such as his “consultation services”.
Neo and Wong eventually agreed to pay him $50,000 in two payments of $25,000.
According to the prosecution, the pair also agreed to pay Goh in cash to cover their tracks and agreed to mask the payments as either “director fees” or “director bonus” in their internal ledgers.
The prosecutors told the court: “Neo and Wong were aware that it was wrong for them to have made such payments to Goh, given that they were for the purposes of advancing Magnum’s business interests with WRS.
“They nonetheless decided to proceed with the payments as they felt that they stood no chance of securing higher value jobs with WRS if they did not comply with Goh’s request.”
Court documents stated that on Dec 2, 2016, Neo and Wong authorised a $30,000 withdrawal from their company’s bank account and Wong later handed $25,000 in cash to Goh.
The prosecutors said that Magnum later received information from Goh and adjusted its quotation prices to fit WRS’ budget before submitting its bids.
This allowed the company to outbid its competitors and be considered by WRS’ tender evaluation committee, which typically only assessed bids with the most competitive prices.
The prosecution said that Goh then made recommendations for WRS to invite Magnum to provide quotations, and subsequently pushed for WRS to engage Magnum for multiple projects.
Between April and December 2017, WRS awarded three projects to Magnum, including various construction work at the zoo’s cape buffalo exhibit worth nearly $287,800.
Court documents did not disclose how the offences came to light, but all three men were charged in court in 2022.
Neo and Wong will be sentenced next Thursday.
