The director of corporate communications for the holding company for Singapore's public healthcare institutions reportedly resigned last week after failing to declare a conflict of interest.
Adelaide Chang resigned from the Ministry of Health Holdings (MOHH), where she was also part of a three-member tender committee, after the company found out that Chang has a cousin working as a senior executive of a vendor company, The Straits Times (ST) reported.
The tender committee included two people from other divisions and was responsible for awarding tenders for a project from Chang’s department.
Chang was procuring services to develop a brand identity and new logo for MOHH when she breached the company policy. Chang had engaged the same company in the past, according to the broadsheet.
Chang had declared on 3 July during a recent procurement exercise that she had no conflict of interest with the said vendor, the paper reported.
“While there was no evidence of fraud or criminal wrongdoing, the failure to declare the conflict of interest was a clear non-compliant with company policy,” MOHH said in a statement quoted in ST.
“MOHH took the decision to terminate her services, and met her to communicate these matters. However, Miss Chang proffered her resignation instead,” MOHH added.
MOHH is in charge of the employment of junior doctors and developing a national IT framework for Singapore's public healthcare sector among other services.
The healthcare institutions within MOHH are divided into six broad clusters. They include National University Health System, National Healthcare Group, Singapore Health Services, Alexandra Health System, Jurong Health Services, and Eastern Health Alliance.
