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I just came across an article featuring the case of a foreign professional
(and family) taking on huge amounts of debt, neglecting to pay their rent, and
absconding to India. The article included a picture of a demand note showing
that the individual in question owed UOB over $20,000:
Some of the other things in the article might be
written off as hearsay (by the persnickety), but that image was a concrete piece
of evidence that this kind of scam (the oldest kind of con) is still going on.
(Furthermore, in that particular case, that number probably included just the
borrowing on the credit cards and lines of credit from one bank. It wouldn’t
surprise me if over five different banks were involved since there is no notion
of an individual “total credit limit” in Singapore.)
In general, this takes us back (yes, back) to the serious issue of foreigners
taking on obligations (e.g.: debt or work obligations) and absconding never to
be seen again. “People leaving and leaving their obligations behind” has long
had the attention of the civil service. I remember seeing some “where are
scholarship recipients” statistics quite some years back. One particular
spreadsheet column pointed out to me was labelled “whereabouts unknown,
uncontactable” (or something to that effect). That was more than half a decade
ago. Problems of this sort have been long known to exist and should have been
tracked by the government. The question, then, is why nothing seems to have been
done about it.
Relating to this case, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement
(CECA) took effect between India and Singapore in 2005. Therein, Indian workers
(especially professionals) are to be accorded “preferential treatment”. How is
this relevant? Bear with me for a moment. Interestingly, much of the porosity of
our borders to foreign professionals seeking to work here was negotiated by
government officials under the very watchful eye of the PAP. Our most recent
past and present foreign ministers include:
- Wong Kan Seng: 13 September 1988 – 1 January 1994
- S. Jayakumar: 2 January 1994 – 12 August 2004
- George Yeo: 13 August 2004 – 17 May 2011
- K. Shanmugam: 18 May 2011 – Present
… and we have them and their Cabinet colleagues to thank for the obligations
of the agreements we have signed. The PAP has repeatedly said that it is focused
on the real and concrete interests of Singapore. Therefore, I am rather
surprised that they, long aware of the risk of the “borrow and run” scam (the
oldest known con), have not built in provisions to go after foreigners in such
“favoured nations” who have pulled this manner of con on Singaporeans and
Singapore Institutions. A sufficiently strong cross-border arrangement is needed
to deal with this problem but that is simply not present. This speaks of being
severely derelict in negotiation and risk management. Some capable
government…
Jeremy
Chen
* Article first appeared on Jeremy
Chen’s website (23 Apr).
