A PAP MP who lies will be out; and if innocent, must clear his name, he says
By Leonard Lim, The Straits Times, 13 Jul 2013
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday urged Workers' Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang not to leave grave doubts about the integrity of his fellow MPs unresolved, following the recent hawker centre cleaning dispute.
At the heart of the issue, he said, was integrity and honesty.
"If we cannot trust a politician to tell the truth, then we cannot trust him or her to safeguard public funds, to put public interest ahead of personal gain, or to make decisions affecting the well-being and security of Singaporeans.
"This is the standard that we must hold ourselves to, and that Singaporeans have rightly come to expect from those in politics, whether in government or opposition. This is why we must take accusations of dishonesty against political leaders very seriously," he said.
Mr Lee said that if any of his People's Action Party (PAP) colleagues were accused of dishonesty - as WP MPs Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh had been - he would get to the bottom of the matter.
And he made clear the rules for his own party: "If he has lied, there is only one option - he has to go. If he is innocent, I will insist that he clear his name publicly."
The PM's statement comes after a dramatic parliamentary exchange on Tuesday when Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan accused Ms Lim and Mr Singh of making false and untruthful statements when they tried to cover up their town council's demand for extra payment for cleaning of high areas at Bedok hawker centres.
The minister produced a dossier of what he said was "incontrovertible evidence" that a staff member of the WP-run town council, Mr Tai Vie Shun, had asked the hawkers to pay extra. Such cleaning is usually done and paid for by town councils.
Ms Lim, who chairs both the WP and the town council, denied the charges.
Dr Balakrishnan withdrew his parliamentary privilege, signalling his readiness to be sued by the two MPs if he had defamed them.
In the House, Mr Low said he would find out who had actually asked the contractor to give a quotation for the cleaning.
But on Wednesday, he told reporters there was no need for this, as an earlier WP investigation had proven the claim to be baseless.
He also deemed Dr Balakrishnan's remarks to be personal attacks and questioned if it made for "good politics", quoting the PM's comment a week ago that the country needs to get its politics right.
Yesterday, Mr Lee said Mr Low was wrong to have done so.
He also noted that Dr Balakrishnan's statement was not his personal opinion but was that of the Government and had been approved by the Cabinet.
Noting that Mr Low had "reversed course without explanation", Mr Lee turned the argument on good politics back to the WP. "Good politics is first and foremost about integrity," he said. Mr Low's decision not to investigate was especially troubling in the light of past incidents, such as Mr Singh's plagiarism of an article.
In an oblique reference to the WP's slogan, he said of the unresolved hawker issue: "This is not how members of a First World Parliament should conduct themselves. Neither is this the sort of politics Singapore needs."
The WP last night said it will respond to the PM's statement in due course.
WP's refusal to conduct probe 'troubling'
This is in light of past incidents involving the party: PM Lee
By Leonard Lim, The Straits Times, 13 Jul 2013
THE Workers' Party's (WP) refusal to conduct an investigation into the hawker centre cleaning issue is troubling in the light of past incidents, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday.
One was the plagiarism by one of its MPs last year, when Mr Pritam Singh passed off an Internet article "word for word" as his own in a parliamentary speech.
The other was the award of a contract in 2011 - without any tender - to a company owned by close WP supporters.
During last year's Budget debate, Mr Singh called for an ombudsman but failed to attribute his speech to a blogger's post written in 2008.
He later said he had the blogger's permission to quote liberally from the post.
He reiterated this in a Facebook post last night, adding: "While my conscience has always been clear on the matter, I leave the public to judge why the PAP officially raised this issue some 16 months after it took place, that too in the context of a completely separate matter."
Mr Lee, in his statement yesterday, also pointed out that the WP-run Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC) failed to explain why two years ago, it appointed a company owned and run by close party supporters to handle its affairs.
The People's Action Party (PAP) disclosed in May, during a parliamentary debate on town councils, that a tender was not called and the company, FM Solutions and Services (FMSS), had been appointed at a much higher price than the prevailing rate.
"Now FMSS, running AHPETC, has tried to charge hawkers extra for cleaning their hawker centres, and Ms Lim and Mr Singh have tried to cover it up," said Mr Lee.
Mr Singh, who is also the vice-chairman of AHPETC, which oversees the hawker centres involved in the cleaning row, insisted at the height of the controversy last month that no town council staff had asked hawkers to pay extra for cleaning the high areas.
These costs are borne by town councils.
This was WP chairman Sylvia Lim's position as well on Tuesday, after a dossier of notes and letters on the issue was produced by Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.
He said it showed that Mr Tai Vie Shun, a property manager from the WP-run town council, had asked for it.
Dr Balakrishnan framed the issue as one about clean politics, rather than the cleaning of hawker centres.
This point was repeated by Mr Lee yesterday.
He went into detail on why integrity and honesty were important in politics, and why WP chief Low Thia Khiang's description of the charges made against his WP colleagues as "personal attacks" was wrong.
The country's success has been due to honest, upright politicians whom the citizenry can trust to "uphold the public interest, to speak the truth even when it is inconvenient, and to admit mistakes when things go wrong".
This, he said, is how the Government has built trust between Singaporeans and their leaders. If politicians cannot be trusted to tell the truth, then they also cannot be trusted to safeguard public funds or public interest.
He also said that before any minister accuses someone of dishonesty, "he must make sure that he is fully able to back up his charge".
On Wednesday, a day after the tense debate in Parliament, Mr Low said he disagreed with Dr Balakrishnan that the issue was about integrity and clean politics.
"It is market cleaning. Let's put it right and into proper perspective," Mr Low had said.
The WP's case is that the issue is a misunderstanding that arose from a "misleading" e-mail sent to the town council by the National Environment Agency on Feb 7, and from confusion over whether the discussions were about annual or quarterly cleaning. High areas do not have to be cleaned in the latter case.
Political watchers like former Nominated MP Zulkifli Baharudin said last night that the Prime Minister has a point when he framed the issue as one of integrity.
The reason Mr Lee is wading into the debate, he added, had to be seen in the wider context of how opposition supporters, especially those online, are giving credence to statements made by non-PAP politicians without much regard as to whether they are truthful.
Said Mr Zulkifli: "After this episode, the lesson is: Politicians must get their facts right, especially if they want to use it for political advantage."
HEART OF THE ISSUE
If any of my PAP colleagues is accused of lying, I will investigate and get to the bottom of the matter.
If he has lied, there is only one option - he has to go. If he is innocent, I will insist that he clear his name publicly. The matter has to be resolved one way or the other.
It cannot be left as an 'I say, you say' matter of opinion, which leaves a permanent question mark hanging over his reputation, and the reputation of my Government.
Mr Low cannot leave these grave doubts about the integrity of his fellow MPs unresolved. This is not how members of a First World Parliament should conduct themselves. Neither is this the sort of politics Singapore needs.
READ DOCUMENTS, THEN DECIDE
There are certainly people who will take that view. I think the real answer to that is, all the documents are out there, lined up. Just read them and then you can decide whether it is true or untrue. Don't form impressions before reading the documents.
Ask yourself why Mr Tai has not responded. One of the two MPs did not say a word in Parliament in response to the allegation. And they say, move on.
If a PAP MP has lied in public, I think all of you will find it unacceptable. And all of you will expect the PM to investigate, and if indeed the allegation is true, you will expect the person to resign.
I am talking about PAP MPs. That is what is expected of us, and that is the system of integrity we have run.
- Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam, responding to a question on how some see the Government's challenge to the Workers' Party as being politically motivated and not a question of integrity. He was speaking at a National University of Singapore forum last night
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