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SINGAPORE – A former employee of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) who received bribes totalling $200,000<\/span><\/a> from various contractors has been sentenced to a total of two years and five months\u2019 jail.<\/p>\n From June 2014 to May 2018, Goh Meng Kwee, 53, committed the offences to advance the companies\u2019 business interests with his then employer.<\/p>\n WRS, now known as Mandai Wildlife Group, manages major animal-related tourist attractions such as the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari.<\/p>\n On May 25, Goh, who is no longer working for the firm, was sentenced to two years\u2019 jail and ordered to pay a $180,000 penalty.<\/p>\n He will have to spend an additional 18 weeks behind bars should he fail to pay the penalty.<\/p>\n He pleaded guilty to offences including multiple counts of graft involving $97,000.<\/p>\n They involved three men: Neo Chye Koon, Wong Chee Thiam and Ng Thiam Huat.<\/p>\n Deputy public prosecutors Eric Hu and Tan Jun Ya told the court that Goh was a senior project manager in WRS\u2019 exhibit design department at the time of his offences.<\/p>\n He worked closely with the procurement department and was considered a \u201csubject matter expert\u201d on vendors and contractors.<\/p>\n His recommendations on which vendors should be engaged for jobs and projects done by WRS carried significant weight, the court heard.<\/p>\n In 2016, Neo and Wong, who were then directors at stainless steel fabrication firm Magnum Precision Industries, met Goh and agreed to give him inducements in return for jobs.<\/p>\n Neo and Wong, both 54 then, were each sentenced to seven months\u2019 jail<\/span><\/a> in October 2023 after pleading guilty to a graft charge involving Goh.<\/p>\n Goh first got to know Neo in 2016 at a social gathering.<\/p>\n One or two months later, he contacted Neo and informed him that there were jobs on offer at the Singapore Zoo.<\/p>\n Goh then arranged for a meeting with Neo and Wong.<\/p>\n At this meeting, Goh offered to invite Magnum to tender for these jobs and to guide them on the tender process if they were willing to pay him $50,000 for his \u201cconsultation services\u201d and as an \u201centrance\u201d to these projects.<\/p>\n Neo and Wong later agreed to pay him the amount in two payments of $25,000 in cash.<\/p>\n The DPPs said: \u201cThey… decided to proceed with the payments as they felt that they stood no chance of securing higher-value jobs with WRS if they did not comply with the accused\u2019s request.\u201d<\/p>\n In December 2016, Wong handed $25,000 in cash to Goh, who then provided Magnum with information, such as WRS\u2019 budget for specific projects for which Magnum was placed to bid.<\/p>\n Between April and December 2017, Magnum was awarded several projects worth more than $440,000 in all.<\/p>\n Similarly, Goh also received more than $70,000 in bribes from Ng, who was then a director at construction services company United Channel Construction & Facility Services.<\/p>\n In earlier proceedings, the court heard that Ng, then 57, managed to secure multiple projects worth more than $420,000 in all.<\/p>\n He was sentenced to 10 months\u2019 jail<\/span><\/a> in April 2023.<\/p>\n Separately, after an earlier trial, Goh was found guilty of a graft charge involving another $50,000. This case involved Tay Chun Hsiong and Fang Yih Uei.<\/p>\n On May 25, Tay, 49, was sentenced to seven months\u2019 jail, and Fang, 38, was ordered to spend six months behind bars.<\/p>\n They were each convicted of a graft charge following the earlier trial with Goh.<\/p>\n In their submissions, the DPPs said that Fang withdrew $50,000 in cash that he passed to Tay.<\/p>\n The money was then handed to Goh in an envelope in May 2018.<\/p>\n The DPP told the court: \u201cTay and Fang gave $50,000 as a reward to Goh for using his influence to recommend Tay\u2019s company, Lantro, to Pico Art International for (a project).\u201d<\/p>\n Tay and Fang will be appealing against their convictions and sentences.<\/p>\n In March, Goh was sentenced to five months\u2019 jail and a $20,000 penalty after a district court convicted him of a graft charge involving one Ng Yeow Seng, 63.<\/p>\n Goh will have to spend an additional four weeks behind bars should he fail to pay this $20,000 penalty.<\/p>\n He had received a bribe of $20,000 from Ng Yeow Seng, who was earlier fined $60,000.<\/p>\n The prosecution told the court on May 25 that it will be appealing against the latter\u2019s sentence.<\/p>\n Goh will be serving his sentences consecutively and will spend a total of two years and five months behind bars.<\/p>\n Following his convictions, he had seven other charges that were considered during his sentencing.<\/p>\n His bail was set at $200,000 on May 25.<\/p>\n He is expected to begin serving his sentences on June 22.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE – A former employee of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) who received bribes totalling $200,000 from various contractors has been sentenced to a total of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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