Dec 7, 2010
Transport provider fined for graft
By Elena Chong
A TRANSPORT company owner was fined a total of $23,000 on Tuesday for rewarding $17,500 to a Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD) employee for his assistance in getting a transport contract.
Ng Chew Chuah had admitted to five of 18 counts of giving a total of $4,500 to Mr Lau Yeow Hui alias Eric, 32, between October 2005 and March 2007.
The 39-year-old owner of Ming Chuan Transportation & Coach Service came to know Mr Lau - then a welfare programme coordinator - in 2004, when he was a driver for Sinbus Transport Services, which was SPD's then-transport provider.
Wheelchair-bound Mr Lau has been fined $10,000 and ordered to pay a penalty of $17,500 for corruption. In 2005, Ng heard from Mr Lau that the SPD had decided to terminate Sinbus' contract.
By then, Ng had set up his own transportation business under Ming Chuan. He subsequently successfully bid for the SPD contract with Mr Lau's help, and rewarded him $1,000 a month.
Ng could have been fined up to $100,000 and/or jailed for up to five years on each charge.
