At the second week of the S$33 million civil suit to unseat Singapore’s 3 Opposition MPs, PAP-hired prosecutor Davinder Singh bit on the fact that the directors of managing agent FMSS were employees of the town council. According to the court hearing, MP Sylvia Lim did not declare the directors’ shareholding of the new managing agent FMSS to the town council.
However the declaration was only formality as it was common knowledge that FMSS was set up by the town council’s secretary and deputy secretary, Danny Loh and How Weng Fan. Senior counsel Davinder Singh conveniently left out the fact that the general managers of all PAP town councils are also employees of their managing agent contractor, CPG.
At the cross examination yesterday (Oct 23), former PAP MP Davinder Singh obfuscated the meaning of MP Sylvia Lim’s earlier email which wrote that it was “good for councillors’ decision-making”, saying that it is necessary for the shareholding interests be declared.
“Ms Lim said: “We can/should enclose the Acra (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority) search… let me arrange.” Using the word “should” implied Ms Lim considered the information relevant to the other councillors.”
Davinder Singh then barked at the WP MP saying that she intentionally misled others to get the tender waived:
“Having already decided to waive in June, you were now giving the impression to the town council, that 4th of August, there was no time to call for a tender because of the position in which CPG and AIM put us in.”
MP Sylvia Lim responded saying that the shareholder information and managing agent rates were not mentioned in the meetings because it was already common knowledge that FMSS would use the same prevailing rates and that the directors of FMSS were indeed the town council’s employees.
To this, Davinder Singh embarked on a scolding session unstopped by the judge:
“This was a very carefully thought-through meeting. There were e-mails leading up to (it) about when should it be called, should it be postponed, what should be disclosed… what should go into the report – you amended it, and you want this court to believe that all these relevant matters didn’t occur to you?”