By: Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss A minister must scrupulously avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interests between his office and his private financial interests. This is one of the rules stated in the Code of Conduct for Ministers of Singapore. News that Cabinet Ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan were living in SLA-managed state-owned colonial mansions …
A minister must scrupulously avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interests between his office and his private financial interests. This is one of the rules stated in the Code of Conduct for Ministers of Singapore.
The decision to constitute the SM Teo review committee may be seen as an acknowledgment that the Ridout Road rentals do not look good and a public explanation was warranted. from using special knowledge acquired in the course of his activities as Minister to bring benefit or to avoid loss in relation to his private financial interests.
As for Clause 3.2, the words “might, even conceivably” seem to import the idea that transactions where there is a potential for conflict of interests between private financial interest and public duty should also be avoided. On 2 August 2022, Mr Shanmugam speaking as the Law Minister, answered parliamentary questions on rental demand for SLA-managed black and white houses. It was not public knowledge then that Mr Shanmugam was himself a tenant of such a state-owned colonial home since June 2018. Mr Shanmugam informed:
Suffice to say, by renting SLA-managed properties, the two ministers may well have created special challenges for SLA, challenges which SLA would not have had to face had the tenants been anyone else.2. managing the tenant and the tenancy; andFor the first stage, the two ministers went through the transparency of a public tender to become an SLA tenant. If the tender process was rigorous as to be blind to the status of the Mr Shanmugam and Dr Vivian, then I suppose it is all well and good.
• Mr Shanmugam’s tenancy commenced in June 2018. On 17 September 2018, URA received an application from SLA to carry out the following works at 26 Ridout Road: “Proposed additions and alterations involving a new open sided carpark shelter to the existing 2-storey conservation detached dwelling house”.
Given that the tenant in both cases were ministers, and one of whom was also the Law Minister, did SLA have protocols in place to ensure that the minister-tenants were dealt with at arm’s length, with no deference being granted to the tenants by virtue of their public office? Would SLA’s tenancy renewal process for the Ridout Road rentals be one of the things that SM Teo’s review will check?The ministerial review is certainly welcomed. But the decision to appoint SM Teo to head the review has left a lot to be desired.
By the way, SM Teo’s review seems to be confined to Mr Shanmugam and Dr Vivian, presumably because they were the two ministers cited by Kenneth Jeyaretnam in his blogposts. If there are not, then chronologically, Mr Shanmugam is the first minister ever to do so in June 2018, followed by Dr Vivian.• There has been rife public speculation and disquiet on the propriety of the Ridout Road rentals.
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