1. Mr. Pritam Singh, the Leader of the Opposition, accused the government in Parliament today (2 August 2023) of “either been slow to clear the air or been less than upfront and forthright with Singaporeans when it had to deal with potentially embarrassing issues”. He gave three examples that allegedly support his accusation. This serious allegation by Mr. Singh fundamentally impugns the integrity of our government and law enforcement agencies, and it merits our careful consideration.
2. First, Mr. Singh alleges that “the public was not informed forthwith that CPIB had been instructed to look into the Ridout Road rentals by two ministers”. As a starting point, we must remember that Mr. Singh had accepted in Parliament on 3 July 2023 that he “do[es] not believe anybody is making an allegation that the Minister is corrupt, somebody is corrupt in the system”. As such, his present complaint is not that there was a defect in the investigation, or that the findings were wrong, but that the involvement of CPIB was not communicated immediately.
3. According to Mr. Singh, it is not sufficient that the public be informed, but be informed “forthwith”. It is not clear where Mr. Singh derived this requirement that the public be informed “forthwith”. He made no reference to any known standards, guidelines, or recommendations, and simply asserted, as a matter of fait accompli, that the disclosure must be made “forthwith”. He ignores the fact that the full reports by CPIB and SM Teo Chee Hean were made available for public scrutiny, and it is the substantive matters that are discussed in those reports that are important. So, what is the cause of his bellyaching? It appears to be nothing more than an attempt to score cheap political points.
4. Second, Mr. Singh alleges that there is “considerable public disquiet about the CPIB releasing a statement on the 12th of July which statement that Minister Iswaran was assisting with investigations while omitting to disclose the fact that Minister Iswaran has been arrested the day before”. The phrase “considerable public disquiet” is a convenient cover for someone who wants to borrow public support without proving that he has it. Did Mr. Singh conduct a poll across a representative cross-section of Singapore society to determine that there is (a) public disquiet and (b) that such disquiet is considerable? As a trained lawyer, a parliamentarian, and the Leadership of the Opposition, Mr. Singh should know better than to pass off mere rhetorical flourishes as facts.
5. Furthermore, Mr. Singh’s allegation, although superficially intended to address “the standards of the PAP”, in fact contains an insidious and pernicious suggestion of partiality on the part of the CPIB. This is apparent from Mr. Singh’s question to PM Lee, asking if he had “enquired with the CPIB why it undertook such a course of action [in not stating that Minister Iswaran was arrested in its 12 July statement] that brought unnecessary attention to the CPIB’s processes and by extension even its impartiality”.
6. This suggestion of partiality on the part of CPIB is categorically without basis. It will be recalled that both Minister Iswaran and Mr. Ong Beng Seng were arrested on 11 July 2023. The press release by the CPIB on 12 July 2023 mentioned Minister Iswaran only and did not reveal the involvement of Mr. Ong Beng Seng. As such, all the public attention was focused on Minister Iswaran since he was the only named party at that time. If there was any intention on CPIB’s part to be partial to the government, it could have delayed the press release or declined to release one. The fact that CPIB put out a press statement naming Minister Iswaran (a) clearly evidences CPIB’s appreciation that the involvement of a serving Minister in an investigation is a matter of public interest, and (b) demonstrates that it will release information on a matter of public interest even if it could injure the reputation and image of a public office holder or the government itself.
7. Mr. Singh takes issue with the fact that the press release omits to mention that Minister Iswaran was arrested. Well, the CPIB is not obliged to put out a press release to begin with. Even if it does do so, it is common practice across all investigative agencies not to name persons who has been arrested and placed under investigations because of the potential prejudice that may be caused to individuals who may eventually be exonerated. As such, we will come to the inexorable conclusion that CPIB’s actions are unimpeachable once we appreciate that CPIB’s press release on 12 July 2023 had in fact provided information that would ordinarily be withheld.
8. In any event, CPIB’s reason for not announcing that Minister Iswaran had been arrested on 12 July was because it wanted to establish more facts, and to hear Minister Iswaran’s side of the story. Once it made that decision, PM Lee and DPM Lawrence Wong took reference from CPIB’s statement “because ministers, including the prime minister, should not reveal more than what the law enforcement agencies are prepared to disclose”. As such, Mr. Singh’s criticism of the CPIB and his suggestion of partiality on their part is entirely unfounded.
9. Third, Mr. Singh alleges that the government “took almost 9 months before it disclosed to Singaporeans that the Singapore Police Force sought to collect TraceTogether data for investigation in May 2020 even as the PAP continued to assert right through the rest of the year that TraceTogether was only to be used for contact tracing”. This is patently incorrect characterisation of the facts. There is little need to spill more ink on this, except to remind ourselves of the actual facts, recounted here by Minister Vivian Balakrishnan:
TraceTogether is a system that temporarily collected Bluetooth proximity data without GPS coordinates, without movement data, and the data is expunged after 25 days. When I first was involved in the design of this system, it was purely for the purposes of contact tracing, dealing with the clear and present danger that COVID-19 presented to our population. I made a statement, I think it was in June 2020, which omitted four important words. The four missing words, which I said before, was “subject to prevailing legislation”.
What I had not known, when I made the assurance that the data would not be available to law enforcement agencies was that s 20 of the CPC in fact applied to TraceTogether data, as it does to all other information which a person may have access to, which the Police may need for the purposes of investigation. Anyway, I made that statement in ignorance of the prevailing legislation, and I omitted those four words in June 2020.
Round about I believe at the end of October 2020, a member of the public wrote to me, and said: “Are you sure? Please check.” So I said: “Thank you” and I did get my staff to check. So that was already into November. And when my staff in the SmartNation Office then told me that actually s 20 of the CPC may be relevant, that’s when you will recall I said in this House, right from this stand: “I had many sleepless nights deciding what we do about this”. Do we make legislative changes, or do we instruct the Police or could we even instruct the Police to proscribe their access to this data although legally speaking, they had.
So, there was sleepless nights on my part, intense discussions internally between multiple agencies on the part of the government in November 2020. And my staff will also recall I told them whatever it is, when we finish this internal review, we will come back here, and we will come clean in my usual fashion and explain the situation. We didn’t have a sitting in December, but I believe it was Mr. Christopher De Souza who filed the question. I think it was in December 2020.
And on the 4th of January 2021, the answer was answered by, I believe by the MOS of Home Affairs, Desmond Tan. On the 5th of January, I added further clarifications and I also indicated, I think a few days after that, that we will come back to Parliament in February 2021 with legislative changes to circumscribe the access by law enforcement agencies into TraceTogether data.
10. In short, the time taken by the government to acknowledge that TraceTogether data could be used for the purposes of police investigation was extremely brief. The issue was highlighted to Minister Balakrishnan in end-October 2020, confirmations were carried out in November 2020, and the issue was discussed in Parliament at the earliest available opportunity, which was January 2021.
11. The effect of Mr. Singh’s baseless assault on our government and law enforcement agencies is to undermine public confidence in the integrity and competence of our government and law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, it has negative consequential effects on the morale of the dedicated men and women working ceaselessly and impartially to enforce and maintain the law in Singapore. It must be noted that these men and women do not have the advantage of Mr. Singh’s parliamentary pulpit to defend themselves.
12. Let us be clear, neither our government nor law enforcement agencies are or should be insulated from criticism. Fair criticism where warranted leads to self-reflection, review of processes and improvement in standards. However, if the criticism is unfair and unfounded, as in the case of Mr. Singh’s bellicose, self-righteous sermon, it causes serious injury to public trust and breeds unjustified suspicion of our government and law enforcement agencies.
13. So why this calculated assault on our government and law enforcement agencies? Why this intentional attempt to degrade public confidence in law enforcement? Why suggest partiality on the part of CPIB, with the attendant insinuation of the involvement of party politics? Has it anything to do with the fact that Mr. Singh is himself is under police investigations in relation to his conduct before the Committee of Privileges which was looking into the lies told by Ms. Raeesah Khan in Parliament?
14. Whatever Mr. Singh’s motivations, he must understand that words have real world consequences. His baseless assault on our government and law enforcement agencies is entirely regrettable and has damaged public trust and confidence in our government who has been forthright and transparent in their dealings with Singaporeans, and our law enforcement agencies who have been provably impartial in the discharge of their duties.