During the period a former Ang Mo Kio Town Council general manager allegedly took bribes from two company directors, the town council awarded tenders and contracts worth millions of dollars to the duo's two companies.

These included repair and redecoration works on blocks of Housing Board flats as well as the construction of community gardens, court documents revealed on the first day of the trial of former general manager Wong Chee Meng yesterday.

Wong, 58, pleaded not guilty to taking the bribes totalling more than $107,000, mostly from Chia Sin Lan, 63, a director and major shareholder of companies 19-ANC Enterprise and 19-NS2 Enterprise, whose core business is doing works for town councils.

The "lion's share of the gratification", amounting to almost $53,000, was in the form of entertainment expenses at KTV lounges and massage parlours which Wong, who is also known as Victor, and Chia frequented, Deputy Public Prosecutor Alan Loh said yesterday.

"As the general manager of (the town council), Victor Wong had the power and ability to influence the award of (its) projects," he added in his opening statement.

But instead of exercising his role impartially, Wong "fell far short of the high standards of integrity demanded of his office and allowed himself to be cultivated by (Chia) and had become beholden to him, 19-ANC, and 19-NS2", said DPP Loh.

In a statement to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), Wong, who became general manager of the town council in 2013, said Chia and his associate would often offer to pick up the tab when they went drinking as they wanted to cultivate good relations.

"I know that I should not have let them pay or even gone drinking with them, but I was very troubled at the point in time as I was facing problems in my marriage," Wong added in his statement to CPIB chief special investigator Jeffrey Tan, the first witness to take the stand yesterday.

Wong said he would try to pay the bills as well and did so several times. He added that he did not go drinking with other contractors.

Other alleged benefits he received included a $13,500 discount on a car he bought via an arrangement involving Ms Yip Fong Yin, another 19-NS2 Enterprise director.

While he told CPIB the discount was due to the high mileage the car had clocked, Wong conceded this typically knocked $1,000 or so off the price, rather than over $10,000.

Wong is also said to have taken bribes in the form of remittances totalling $30,600 that was sent to his mistress in China, among other charges. He met his mistress Xu Hongmei in 2015 when she was working in Singapore. When she travelled back to China, the single mother asked him for financial help, like paying renovation bills.

When Wong told Chia about these issues, Chia said he would help to settle them. The court also heard that Wong was in China with Chia on two occasions in 2016, during which he visited Ms Xu and got to know Chia's supplier for eco-friendly incense paper burners. Wong told CPIB he did not declare the visits, which were made in his personal capacity.

In another statement in October 2016, Wong said he felt obligated to Chia's firms, and wanted to help them using his authority at work.

In a town council tender for incense burners, for example, he told a colleague to focus on the environmental aspects, knowing that although 19-ANC was the fourth-lowest bidder, it would get a high-quality rating for environment factors and be likely to win the tender.

But the next month, Wong told CPIB his earlier statement was incorrect and he had not been in the right state of mind because of his daughter's impending wedding.

His lawyer Melanie Ho of WongPartnership asked Mr Tan, who took Wong's statement, if he may have decided not to fight the allegations earlier owing to "family pressures". Mr Tan disagreed.

Chia's lawyer Michael Loh of Clifford Law suggested Wong could have made the statements to CPIB out of fear. Again, Mr Tan disagreed.

The trial resumes today.