SINGAPORE: Two men who worked for a National Environment Agency (NEA) contractor took bribes from a construction site manager in return for advance notice of mosquito breeding inspections.
For their crimes, 48-year-old Singaporean Tung Chee Keong was sentenced to jail for 11 weeks and 30-year-old Indian national Chandran Jeganathan was given a prison sentence of six weeks.
Tung was given a penalty of S$1,000, while Jeganathan received one of S$600. If they do not pay these sums, they will serve additional jail terms of five days and three days respectively.
The court heard that both men worked as vector control workers for Killem Pest, a company that was hired by NEA as a term contractor to help NEA officers to control pests like mosquitoes.
As part of their work, both men followed NEA officers during inspections at construction sites, where they looked for mosquito breeding grounds.
Between January and April 2018, the joint team comprising NEA officers and Killem employees found mosquito breeding grounds on two occasions at a construction site in Tampines Industrial Street 61.
Both times, penalties were imposed. The site was managed by Muthukaruppan Periyasamy, 52, who knew that if there was another violation, a stop-work order would be imposed.
Periyasamy met the two men at a car park in Tampines where he offered them S$400 each month in return for advance notification of upcoming mosquito breeding inspections at the Tampines site.
Tung Chee Keong (left) and Chandran Jeganathan received bribes from a construction site manager to warn him of mosquito inspections. (Photo: Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau)
This was so he could “do the necessary housekeeping right before the inspection took place”, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jasmin Kaur said.
After discussing among themselves, Tung and Jeganathan agreed to accept Periyasamy’s offer.
Between May and August 2018, the two men obtained a total of S$1,600 in bribes over five occasions from Periyasamy in return for a heads-up on the inspections. Of this, Tung took S$1,000 while Jeganathan pocketed S$600.
Shortly after beginning to take bribes from Periyasamy, Tung approached a workplace safety and health officer at another construction site in July, asking him for S$1,000 in return for informing him of upcoming mosquito breeding inspections and turning a blind eye to any violations.
The officer negotiated the amount to S$500 before saying he needed management approval for it, later telling Tung that his company would not be paying him.
Tung pleaded guilty to three charges, with another three taken into consideration, while Jeganathan admitted to two charges with another three charges taken into consideration.
The two men are no longer employed by Killem. Periyasamy is set to plead guilty on Apr 10.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau said in a statement after the hearing that Singapore adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach towards corruption.
“Corrupt acts which compromise mosquito breeding controls can pose a serious danger to public health safety,” said the bureau.
