SINGAPORE — The Government is reviewing home purchases made between 2007 and 2011 by officers involved in rail planning at the time, in cases where the properties were close to sites subsequently announced as MRT stations.
The Public Service Division (PSD) said in a statement on Sept 25 that it is identifying the purchases and will review them to assess if there was actual misconduct. If there is evidence that an officer used non-public information to make a property purchase for personal benefit, the case will be referred to the police for further investigation, it added.
“As these transactions took place some time ago, we will need time to retrieve the available records and examine the circumstances of each case,” said the PSD, which sits under the Prime Minister’s Office.
The response came after the release of a research paper claiming Singapore civil servants, in particular those involved in rail planning, disproportionately bought homes near MRT stations that had not yet been publicly announced. The working paper, which was published by US-based non-profit organisation National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the pattern largely disappeared after 2011.
The PSD said earlier on Sept 14 that it was reviewing the paper’s data and methodology and would refer any issue to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau “if there is a material basis to do so”.
On Sept 25, the PSD said the statistical patterns reported in the paper are a concern, and that it takes the assertions seriously.
However, it noted that statistical patterns surfaced by the paper do not by themselves establish whether any individual officer actually had access to non-public information on MRT station locations at the relevant time, or whether such information influenced a property purchase.
For example, information or speculation about planned MRT lines and stations may already be in the public domain or used to market new property developments, it stated.
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