Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke in Parliament on 3 July and addressed the Ridout Road saga involving ministers K. Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan, and said that they have his full confidence after investigations revealed that they have done nothing wrong.
Snippets of PM Lee’s statement
Ministers in Singapore are paid a clean wage, realistic, competitive but clean wage. They do not get perks, there is no official house to live in. You get a salary. It is for you to judge what you need it for, for your lives. Save it, give it away, spend it, put in a house, travel, whatever.
Therefore, where Ministers decide to live, whether they want to rent, whether they want to buy, these are personal choices. Thus I see nothing wrong with Ministers renting properties from SLA, or for that matter, from a private landlord, provided it is properly done, and all procedures are followed.
Therefore when I heard that two of my Ministers, Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan had rented Black and White bungalows at Ridout Road, my assessment, without going into in depth, was that I did not believe there was wrong doing involved. I had every confidence that my Ministers, and the SLA officials who dealt with them, would have done the right things, and handled the rentals properly.
However, after SLA’s statement on the 12th of May, the issue continued to attract public interest.
So when the two Ministers asked me to conduct an investigation independent of their ministries, I decided that notwithstanding my confidence in them and in the system, it would be best for me to task CPIB2Â to conduct a formal investigation, and to establish definitively if there was any corruption or wrongdoing.
Tasked Teo Chee Hean to complement CPIB’s investigation
I tasked Senior Minister (SM) Teo Chee Hean to do a broader review of SLA’s policies and processes, to complement CPIB’s investigation.
SM Teo is my most senior Minister in terms of years in Cabinet and experience. I appointed him, to show that I have every intention to maintain the government’s and the PAP’s longstanding, high and stringent standards of integrity and propriety.
I wanted to put my most experienced, most qualified, for this purpose, most capable person on the job.
I did not consider SM Teo to have been involved in the transaction, even though Minister Shanmugam had informed SM Teo of the arrangements he had made to recuse himself, including that then Senior Minister of State Indranee Rajah had been told to approach SM Teo if the matter had to go beyond her.
Because no such issue arose, and nothing was ever raised to SM Teo. He was the backstop and nothing reached him.
No wrongdoing found
When CPIB and Senior Minister Teo submitted their reports to me, I accepted all their conclusions, and ordered the reports to be published, and placed before the House, before this meeting today so that everybody can read them, digest them, and we are ready to come here and have an informed discussion. These reports provide a good basis for Parliament to discuss the issue.
Their conclusions are quite clear, as the Ministerial Statements you have heard earlier have explained from Senior Minister Teo and Minister Edwin Tong. CPIB found no corruption or wrongdoing, no preferential treatment, no disclosure of privileged information, no abuse of position for personal gain.
The AGC confirmed this after reviewing the Investigation Papers. And the Leader of the Opposition paid CPIB and paid the Government a compliment just now when he said, nobody is suggesting corruption on the part of the Ministers.
CPIB did find an imprecision in how SLA defined the Guide Rent for No. 26 Ridout Road. Their report explained this, and CPIB established that this imprecision was not due to any ill intent on the part of the SLA officers, nor was there any evidence of any male fide abuse of position in the valuation.
The imprecision is embarrassing to SLA and the Government, particularly as SLA had put out a statement earlier to say that the Ministers both paid higher than the guide rents, but that cannot be helped. CPIB calls it as it is, with no regard to whom it might inconvenience or embarrass.
SLA has acknowledged that CPIB’s interpretation is the correct one and they will review their practices, and improve upon them.
Senior Minister Teo’s review, relying on CPIB’s findings, confirmed the broader issues, that there was no conflict of interest or unfair advantage enjoyed, and that all rules and procedures had been complied with.
And his report sets out the basis for his conclusions – these are not just his personal opinions, but conclusions based on documented facts, verified and laid out in the report.
Full confidence in the ministers
Minister Shanmugam and Minister Vivian Balakrishnan have done nothing wrong, and they retain my full confidence. But this accounting in Parliament is not just to resolve the issue of the rentals on two Black and White properties in Ridout Road, important as that is.
It is also a demonstration of how the PAP is determined to uphold the standards which it has set itself from the beginning, in 1959.
This government has not, and will never, tolerate any compromise of or departure from the stringent standards of honesty, integrity and incorruptibility that Singaporeans expect of us. In this case, we have investigated it, the Ministers have been cleared.Â
Source: Prime Minister’s Office