Ex-table tennis chief Choo Wee Khiang charged with graft
By Julia Ng | Posted: 08 December 2011 1034 hrs
SINGAPORE: Former Member of Parliament Choo Wee Khiang has been charged in court with three counts of corruption and one of criminal breach of trust.
The amounts involved total about S$10,600. The offences were allegedly committed during Choo's tenure as the president of the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA).
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said it received several anonymous complaints against Choo from 2005 to 2007 alleging that he had charged his personal airfares, expenses, phone bills to STTA and received gifts from Chinese coaches and players.
Acting on the information received, the CPIB conducted an investigation which revealed that in 2005, Choo had received S$1,500 from Liu Zhongze, who was then a national team player, and Luo Jie, who was then an assistant coach of the STTA, in return for giving Liu more opportunities to represent the STTA in table tennis tournaments.
Investigations also revealed that between 2003 and 2004, Choo is believed to have accepted US$600 on two separate occasions from Shi Mei Sheng, who was then a STTA coach. This was allegedly his reward for approving the use of two different training facilities in China.
The last charge of criminal breach of trust also involves the former High Performance Manager of STTA, Koh Li Ping, who was charged in the same court on Thursday.
The CPIB said that between 2002 and 2003, Luo Jie, whose work pass only permitted him to work for STTA, provided table tennis training to students of Fuhua Secondary School.
But the school was unable to pay him for the training provided, which amounted to S$8,400.
Luo Jie told Choo and Koh about this.
They then allegedly arranged with the principal of the school to engage STTA in a new training arrangement with the intention to use the proceeds received to pay Luo Jie for the outstanding fees.
Subsequently, after STTA received the payment from the school, Koh obtained approval from Choo to authorise a payment of S$8,400 to Luo Jie, even though the latter did not provide any training services under the new training arrangement.
Choo's case has been adjourned to December 22. If found guilty of corruption, he can be fined S$100,000 and jailed five years for each charge.
The punishment for criminal breach of trust is a jail term of up to 15 years and a fine.
This is not the first time Choo has been on the wrong side of the law.
In 1999, the 57-year-old was sentenced to two weeks' jail and fined S$10,000 for helping a family friend to use false invoices to cheat a finance company into granting an S$830,000 loan.
Choo resigned from the STTA in July 2008.
Current STTA president, Ms Lee Bee Wah, posted on Facebook her comments on Choo's case.
She said that since taking over the STTA, she has put in place proper systems and procedures, especially when it comes to governance.
Ms Lee has also promised not to be complacent and to constantly review and improve on these procedures.
- CNA/ck/ir
