Huawei account executive, engineer at Singapore’s health technology agency among 3 accused of corruption

SINGAPORE: Three Singaporeans, including a On Wednesday (Jan 22), a Huawei account executive and an engineer at Singapore’s health technology agency were charged with corruption and offenses including cheating.

Their alleged crimes involve giving or receiving bribes as an inducement to advance business interests.

Peng Ming, a Huawei employee, was charged with four counts of corrupt payment of gratuities, three of which were:malgamated. He also faces one number of frauds.

Ng Kah Siang, an engineer at Integrated Health Systems Information (IHiS), is accused of trying to obtain A$20,000 ($14,700) in bribes from Peng in November 2021. He faces five counts of corruptly obtaining gratuities.

As we read in the indictment, this was intended to encourage Huawei to support Huawei’s business interests with IHiS.

IHiS has existed since then renamed Synapxe. It is a subsidiary of MOH Holdings, the holding company of Singapore’s public health facilities under the Ministry of Health.

Ng, 37, also allegedly tried to obtain a gratuity of 1 percent of a supplier’s sales revenue and at least S$20,000 from a second supplier as an inducement to further her business interests with IHiS, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) said. .

Peng (39) is accused of deceiving Huawei into believing that Ng and his wife were directors of IHiS in February 2022. This was done to deliberately induce Huawei to agree to the couple’s sponsored trip to Paris, the agency added.

Between March 11 and March 20, 2022, Peng and third defendant Chiang Chee Seng – a senior sales executive at Nera Telecommunications – allegedly conspired to provide Ng and his wife with the satisfaction of a trip to Paris, valued at approximately S$18,265. .

This was done as an incentive to support Huawei and Nera’s business interests through IHiS, the CPIB said.

“Between 2020 and 2022, Peng allegedly corruptly paid an engineer at IHiS approximately A$300 per entertainment opportunity to encourage him to support Huawei’s business interests at IHiS,” the statement reads. the agency added.

Ng is also accused of attempting to obtain a gratuity of 1 percent of Nera’s sales revenue from Chiang on another occasion to further the communications solutions provider’s business interests with IHiS.

Chiang, 50, was charged with one count of dishonestly giving gratuities.

All three men have not yet announced whether they will plead guilty or go to trial.

Only Chiang was represented by a lawyer, who asked for more time to take instructions from her client.

The trio’s case will be heard again on March 5.

“Singapore adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach to corruption,” the CPIB said.

“Organizations are strongly advised to put in place robust procedures in areas such as procurement and internal audit to prevent falling victim to corrupt activities by their employees.”

In response to CNA’s inquiries, Huawei said on Wednesday that Peng had not been with the company since early 2023.

When asked about the steps it has taken to protect against bribery, Huawei says it has a zero-tolerance policy against corruption and bribery and continues to develop and improve its existing systems and capabilities.

“We have established compliance monitoring procedures that review the effectiveness of our risk controls and enhance the company’s anti-corruption system and closed-loop compliance management.

“Combining these efforts allows us to effectively control anti-corruption compliance risks across the company,” Huawei said.

Synapxe told CNA that it “immediately” launched a full review at the time of the incident. She added that Ng has not been employed by Synapxe since May 2022.

“His actions did not result in any financial loss or procurement irregularities, and the integrity of our operations remains intact.

“As the matter is pending in court, we are unable to comment further.”

The offense of corruption is punishable by five years in prison or a fine of up to A$100,000, or both.

Additional reporting by Davina Tham.