Corruption trial of ex—SCDF chief Peter Lim resumes

SINGAPORE: The woman at the centre of the corruption trial involving former head of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), Peter Lim Sin Pang, is slated to testify on Monday, when the trial resumes.

Lim, 52, is accused of obtaining sexual favour from Ms Pang Chor Mui of Nimrod Engineering, in exchange for advancing her company’s business interests.

This information came at the end of session on Friday, after the court heard evidence from two SCDF officers.

On Friday morning, assistant director of the purchasing branch at SCDF, Roger Wong, continued to take the stand after the first tranche of the trial in February.

The prosecution’s case is that Lim tipped off Nimrod Engineering about the SCDF’s need for walk—through radiation portal monitors (RPMs) even before the information was made public.

The tender was published on the government e—procurement website GeBiz on 6 April 2011.

Previously, the prosecution made the point that Lim had broached the topic of getting more of these machines on either 16 or 18 March.

This was around the same time Ms Pang instructed a colleague to source for suppliers of these machines.

This, as SCDF had been instructed to carry out radiation screening on passengers arriving into Singapore following the Japanese earthquake in 2011 that damaged a nuclear plant.

On Friday, the defence made the point that as at May 2010, two things were unknown.

One, that the earthquake would happen and trigger a nuclear meltdown and two, SCDF was not fully aware which of its machines were defective and which were functional.

Of all the machines SCDF had in 2011, only three were fully functional on 17 March.

Some repairs had to be done and the next day, only six were working.

It’s the defence’s case that the unforeseen circumstances led to the calling of the tender and was not pre—planned.

It was also established that the SCDF had estimated the procurement value of the contract for the Monitors to be S$958,000.

Later in the day, the court heard Colonel Francis Ng, head of the harzardous material division, testify to being the one who chose not to award the tender to Nimrod.

He said this was because on paper, Nimrod satisfied the criteria, but not in terms of actual operational needs.

When asked by defence, Mr Ng said Lim did not instruct him to award the tender to Nimrod, despite the firm being the cheapest.

He also admitted that Lim had approved the evaluation committee’s recommendation to not award the tender to Nimrod.

Mr Ng later explained that the SCDF had the right to award the tender to another pricier bid if the lowest bid did not meet its needs.

The trial continues.

— CNA/ck