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Public officers will have to declare frequent casino visits: DPM Teo

DPM Teo Chee Hean, who is also Minister of Home Affairs and Minister-in-charge of the Civil Service, said on Monday in Parliament that the government will soon require all its public officers to declare frequent visits to the casino, or their ownership of annual passes. (AFP file photo)

[UPDATED at 6:55pm: adding details about new reporting system for procurement audits]

Singapore’s government plans to require public officers to declare frequent visits or ownership of annual passes to casinos after a senior anti-corruption official last month was charged with fraud to support his gambling habit.
 
Responding to questions by Members of Parliament on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said that police, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) and Central Narcotics Bureau officers involved with general law enforcement work are already required to declare personal-capacity visits to casinos within seven days of their visits.
 
Some officers, such as those from the Casino Regulatory Authority, are flat-out banned from visiting the casinos here, as well as those of their respective parent companies, except on an official basis, he noted. The government does not currently keep track of which of its officers visit the casinos regularly or have annual passes, however.
 
"For public officers in general, PSD (the Public Service Division) intends to require those who visit the casinos frequently, or who purchase the annual casino entry levy, to declare these actions," he said, while not saying specifically how frequent a threshold would be applied.
 
He added, however, that the PSD is currently working out the implementation details for the new rules.
 
At the same time, Teo, who is also minister of Home Affairs and heads the PSD, said there were thus far 81 reports of suspected misconduct filed by public officers under the government's internal disclosure framework, introduced in February 2011. Of that number, 70 resulted in further investigations and that 35 resulted in disciplinary action, he added.
 
"The government will not hesitate to act against any officer who does wrong… even if it causes embarrassment to the government," he said. "We will also continually review our systems and processes, and improve them to plug loopholes, address weaknesses or manage new circumstances."

Late last month, 39-year-old Edwin Yeo Seow Hiong, who served in the CPIB as head of research and technical support, was slapped with 21 charges of misappropriating some $1.76 million in public funds, part of which was allegedly used to fuel at least 12 gambling trips to the Marina Bay Sands casino.

When he appeared in court on 24 July, Yeo appealed for a month to settle his "family problems", and is currently out on a $500,000 bail, which he managed to raise after initially asking for a lower amount.

Yeo will be back in court on 21 August, possibly to enter a plea for the case, as he previously indicated he did not plan to engage defence counsel. Read more about the case here.

New reporting system for procurement audits: DPM Tharman

Separately, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced a new reporting system for the top brass of the civil service in relation to procurement processes, to prevent lapses in these areas that dominated this year's Auditor-General's Office (AGO's) report.

Permanent secretaries and other heads of government agencies will be required to report to the Ministry of Finance with annual findings on procurement audits and follow-up actions in their agencies, as well as plans to prevent future weaknesses and lapses, said DPM Tharman, who was also responding to a series of questions from MPs on the issue on Monday.

"It is crucial that the top management sets the right tone," he said. "We will also keep up with the latest knowledge and techniques... making available additional analytical tools to help both auditors and senior management of the various agencies review procurement activities more effectively."

Commenting on the AGO's report for this year, which highlighted its findings on its annual audit of ministries and government agencies, Tharman said that all the procurement lapses that were cited are "all due to non-compliance with established rules, rather than gaps" in them.

He noted also that the majority of the lapses occurred before last year, which is when agencies have "made special efforts" to improve their procurement processes.

"Our approach therefore is to make every reasonable effort to minimise lapses, while undertaking regular audits to check for any that do occur and keeping open channels for suspected irregularities to be reported," he said. "Where any lapse is detected, we take actions to minimise recurrence."

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