Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Sir, the issues that have been covered by the four Ministers, I think for many Singaporeans, cover multiple matters of concern ranging from propriety to policy to political optics. While CPIB did not disclose corruption or criminal wrongdoing, the two themes I will cover in my questions cover good governance and land management and reserves.
My first question pursues the second question raised by Mr Sitoh Yih Pin – and that is with regard to good governance and Minister Shanmugam’s decision to ask his Deputy Secretary, a very senior civil servant, for a list of properties for his personal occupation. The fact is significant because, unlike Minister Vivian’s property, which was marketed through the SPIO portal amongst others, the information given to Minister Shanmugam for his personal use by the Deputy Secretary would appear to have been privileged. At minimum, the man on the street would not have equal access to this information and would have had to secure it at some cost.
So, I would invite the Senior Minister to consider whether it would have been more appropriate for the Minister in question to have engaged an agent to inquire about properties that were available for rental.
How does the Senior Minister’s report reconcile this with the Ministerial Code of Conduct and the Prime Minister’s Rules of Prudence for the People’s Action Party (PAP) Members of Parliament, which requires that all Ministers should scrupulously, keep their official and private affairs separate?
Should Singaporeans conclude that such actions by Ministers as instructing civil servants on personal matters and using official information for personal use is appropriate, above board and has been going on for a long time in the Public Service?
My second bucket of questions pertains to reserves and land management and I direct this at the Second Minister for Law. Senior Minister Teo’s report is silent on why Minister Shanmugam did not have the confidence of the SLA, a Statutory Board that comes under his Ministry’s purview and the Second Minister’s purview, in maintaining the adjacent land next to 26 Ridout Road in spite of SLA being prepared to pay up to $25,000 a year for its upkeep. Can the Senior Minister explain if he probed into the substance of Minister Shanmugam’s lack of confidence in a Public Service body under his charge?
Sir, we have been told in this House no less that land is a very scarce commodity in Singapore and it must be priced according to its market value. With SLA choosing to focus almost singularly on gross floor area and not total land area in its guide rent of black and white bungalows, including those in the most expensive and prime housing estates comprising Good Class Bungalows, does this not represent a policy loophole that effectively is a special dispensation at the taxpayers’ expense, for individuals who can afford to rent black and white bungalows?
The PAP routinely shuts down any proposal from the opposition or the public that draws down or is perceived to draw down revenue from state land as “a raid on the reserves”.
SLA increased the size of 26 Ridout Road with prime land by almost three times with no real impact on the cost of renting the property except for the usual maintenance. Does this episode not highlight a need to close this policy loophole and put a value on vacant land which the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), anyway, would tax a Singaporean for?
To this end, can I ask the Second Minister for Law also to confirm of the 600 black and white colonial bungalows in Singapore, how many have the total land area larger than 26 Ridout Road today? And how many lessees have SLA negotiated with to enlarge their compounds as much as was enlarged for 26 Ridout Road?
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Mr Pritam Singh: Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you. A number of Members have come forward and asked questions since the first questions I asked. I would like to put into context this Command Paper before the House – I beg your pardon, this Miscellaneous Paper before the House.
The fact of the matter here is I do not believe anybody is making an allegation that the Minister is corrupt, somebody is corrupt in the system. Singaporeans are not making that point. That is quite clear to me.
The issue I think we are having to deal with here is the Ministerial Code of Conduct and a specific course of action that was taken by the Minister when he instructed his Deputy Secretary to get some information. I will just share the problem with that, just over the course of the last two hours.
Senior Minister Teo says it is not a secret list. Anybody can ask for the list. Minister Shanmugam is a little bit more qualified. He says, “Credible people will get that information.”
So, within that, we can see some differentiation of why to seek that information could be conceived as by some people, at least, including myself, as actually seeking information, which probably, out of a matter of prudence, would be better sought by an agent appointed by the Minister – which was the question Senior Minister did not answer in my first round of questions. Would it have been better in his perspective as the Minister reviewing this episode, for Minister Shanmugam to appoint an agent and he would still have been able to make the necessary declarations, vis-à-vis conflict with a senior civil servant and so forth. It would appear from SLA policy that the fact that the Valuer did not know who was the person that was ultimately going to rent the property, suggests that this would not have been so much of a problem.
So, I think we have not interrogated that and how the system can be improved if a situation like this comes up again.
In my view, it is much more prudent in view of the Ministerial Code of Conduct, which is onerous, to keep your official matters and your personal matters separate. There is no need to ask a senior civil servant this information when you know you can get an agent to secure the same information. I am not sure whether the Senior Minister can agree with that.
The second point I would like to rise is Minister Shanmugam spoke of an innuendo that when we ask questions about rental and the land area being increased – that somehow this is a personal attack against him. Let us be clear. Nobody is playing the man here. We are looking at the issue. And my point when I raised my first set of questions was: there is a question of political optics. When we want to rent, let us say, a landed property, an intermediate terrace house would cost less than a corner terrace or semi-detached house. Why? Because the land has utility. If you are a pet lover, you can clearly see that connection. If you have a big family like Minister Vivian, that additional land has utility.
Hence, in the minds of people, the view is, surely, there ought to be some value attached to that, notwithstanding the clarification Second Minister for Law made about how the Valuers in SLA look at it. I think that is the public perception that has raised some of these questions that have come to bear.
I just have a final point which was triggered by what Member Zhulkarnain asked. He asked about the process of the CPIB investigation. Can I just confirm with both Ministers, in the course of the investigations, were your mobile devices seized by CPIB and returned at the end of investigations?
3 July 2023
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=ministerial-statement-2200
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 