In a written response to Law Minister K Shanmugam’s angry outbreak claiming the Workers’ Party-managed Aljunied Town Council is worse than the Ang Mo Kio (AMK) GRC Town Council, the Opposition Workers’ Party said that an influential person like the Law Minister should not make blanket statements perverting the course of justice without waiting for the investigation result.
Currently, the corruption case at AMK GRC Town Council is still under investigation from the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) and that so far, the former general manager was singled out for investigation. It is unknown if more will be involved.
Yesterday (Jan 6), Law Minister K Shanmugam responded to media enquiries angrily, prematurely confirming wrongdoing in AMK GRC Town Council has been found and even compared the finding to the Aljunied Town Council’s accounting irregularity based off his personal judgment. Visibly upset at the unexpected question of the ruling party’s corruption case, Minister K Shanmugam even defamed the Opposition party for hiring “cronies”.
During Aljunied Town Council’s investigation phase, Law Minister K Shanmugam delivered numerous defamatory statements alleging the opposition party for corruption. However, Aljunied Town Council was cleared by independent audits that there was no criminal offenses. In their media response release yesterday, the Workers’ Party poked fun at the hot-headed Law Minister for keeping quiet after investigations found that there was no criminal offenses at Aljunied Town Council.
“Since CPIB is investigating the AMKTC case, we should let due process take its course and not jump to conclusions.When the July 2016 report by KPMG on AHTC came out, AHTC ordered a 100% check on the $60m direct journal entry and dummy code issues. Some people jumped prematurely on the possibility of fraud and fictitious payments without waiting for the results of the audit. When no fraud and fictitious payments were found, the speculators kept quiet. Premature speculation, especially when done by influential people, may pervert the course of justice by shaping investigations. So let’s wait for the findings of the CPIB on the AMKTC case and let the law take its course.”