Former CNB chief Ng Boon Gay maintains no conflict of interest despite affair

SINGAPORE: Former Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) chief Ng Boon Gay has maintained that there was no conflict of interest despite his affair with former IT sales executive Cecilia Sue.

Ng is accused of forcing 36—year—old Ms Sue to provide sexual favours in exchange for allegedly helping further her employers’ business interests.

The former CNB chief said that he and Ms Sue talked about many things, ranging from family matters to politics, during their three—year affair.

However he insists that they never discussed about the projects Ms Sue was working on.

He said that Ms Sue never mentioned that her area of focus was on the Home Affairs Ministry, saying that he only knew her job involved government agencies.

Ng also said that he had no idea Ms Sue was a sub—vendor for one of the IT contracts CNB awarded.

Referring to a pre—procurement paper, the prosecution asked Ng if he knew at that point that HDS, or Hitachi Data Systems, was one of the suppliers to a direct vendor of CNB.

Ng said he did not know what HDS stood for.

The prosecution then asked that given his knowledge of what HDS stood for now, whether he thought there was a conflict of interest given that Ms Sue was an employee of HDS.

Ng replied that "it would raise an alarm".

However, he then went on to explain that there was no actual conflict of interest as CNB only dealt with the main contractor, which was not HDS.

Dealings were with the main contractors and who the main contractors hired was irrelevant, said Ng.

Ng continued saying that even though he was the approving authority for tenders, he did not play any role in choosing vendors but instead based his decisions on the recommendations of his team.

He said that this was because he had no expertise in IT affairs.

In the case where he disapproved any proposal by his team, Ng said he had to state reasons for doing so.

The former CNB chief also said that Ms Sue would ask him from time to time how much he loved her and made him rate his love for her on a scale of one to 10.

He said he usually gave her a six or a seven.

The defence then asked if Ms Sue ever made use of her relationship to ask for a favour, to which Ng replied no.

Ng also denied demanding sex from Ms Sue in exchange for favours.

The court was told that Ng had sent a complaint letter through his lawyers to the Attorney—General’s Chambers.

He had felt that the manner in which the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau’s (CPIB) Deputy Director Teng Khee Fatt questioned him was "unacceptable".

Ng had gone to CPIB for his statements to be taken down three times. All statements were recorded by Mr Teng.

On the third occasion on March 9, 2012, Ng said Mr Teng used plea bargaining on him.

A plea bargain is an agreement between the prosecutor and defendant where the defendant would agree to plead guilty without a trial. In return, the prosecutor would agree to dismiss certain charges or make favourable sentence recommendations to the court.

Ng said Mr Teng pressurised him into pleading guilty in return for the case to be heard in—camera and for prosecution to not ask for a deterrent sentence.

However Ng felt that Mr Teng was capitalising on both the stress from his father’s death and the pressure he faced from the media into admitting something he said he did not do.

AGC replied on 25 April saying that Ng’s claim was unfounded.

The trial continues.

— CNA/jc