SINGAPORE: The People’s Action Party (PAP) will “put things right” and deal with the recent scandals surrounding its Members of Parliament rigorously and transparently, said Mr Lee Hsien Loong on Monday (Jul 17).
He was responding to a question from the media on public perception that there has been a “slip in PAP standards” due to some incidents involving PAP MPs over the past few months.
Mr Lee also said that he has no plans to call an early election.
At the press conference, which had been called to address the resignations of Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and Tampines MP Cheng Li Hui, Mr Lee said that Mr Tan and Ms Cheng had been in an “inappropriate relationship”. Mr Tan had also been embroiled in a controversy after he was caught making disparaging remarks about Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim on a parliament hot mic.
In addition, it emerged last week that Transport Minister S Iswaran was involved in a Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) investigation.
Before that, Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan had to explain in parliament the reasons for their rental of state properties in the exclusive Ridout Road area, and whether there had been any conflict of interest. In this instance, the CPIB and Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean cleared both ministers of any impropriety.
“I think from time to time, these things happen. When they happen, we have to make sure we deal with them and deal with them rigorously as well as transparently, and everybody can see that we are doing that,” said Mr Lee on Monday.
“No system can be completely infallible. You appoint people, sometimes things go wrong, you have to find out and you have to put it right.”
Mr Lee said that in the Ridout Road case, the ministers went through a rigorous and full CPIB investigation, as well as a separate probe by Mr Teo, with the results and the reports presented fully in parliament.
In Mr Iswaran’s case, the matter arose because CPIB came across the issue while doing another investigation, and the anti-graft agency had informed Mr Lee. A few months later, CPIB came back to Mr Lee to report that it wanted to open a formal investigation, and he told them to proceed.
“That is what they have done, and it will go through to its full conclusion,” said Mr Lee. “In the case of Tan Chuan-Jin and Cheng Li Hui, they did not live up to the standards which were expected. We tried to get them to mend their ways, it did not work, and they had to go.”