Pritam Singh, the Leader of the Opposition and Workers’ Party (WP) chief, has spoken out against the findings of the Committee of Privileges (COP), part of the Pritam Singh COP investigation. Pritam Singh voiced his objections, stating that the “gaps and omissions” in the report suggest clear indications of political partisanship.
Meanwhile, Leader of the House Indranee Rajah said in the same Parliament sitting on Feb 15 that the WP leaders’ tactic was not to address the COP’s key findings as to why lies were repeatedly told in the House.
There were two motions on the COP’s final report, one of which was a fine amounting to S$35,000 to be given to WP MP Raeesah Khan for lying twice in Parliament regarding a sexual assault case.
The other motion is to refer Mr Singh and WP vice-chair Faisal Manap to the public prosecutor for their conduct during the COP hearings.
“When seen as a whole, the COP’s processes and the report before Parliament leave many questions, gaps and omissions and by extension suggests political partisanship,” said Mr Singh.
He noted that what took centre stage during the hearings was Ms Khan’s “uncorroborated testimony” that she was told to take the lie to the grave by the WP leaders.
“I reject this finding completely. At no time did I instruct Ms Khan to hide the truth. At the meeting on Aug 8, none of the three Workers’ Party leaders told Ms Khan to take her lie to the grave,” said Mr Singh.
However, Ms Indranee said in her speech that the WP leadership failed to address the key findings by the COP as to why the lies were said and repeated in Parliament.
“I can understand tactically and strategically why you do that, because you’ve got this big report that says these really strong statements,” she said.
“So it’s probably a strategy – a good idea not to deal with those head-on but to pick small little things here and there and to hope that other people will look at that,” said Ms Indranee.
She noted that despite all the evidence given by the opposition members, there was no clear or direct instruction from them advising Ms Khan to tell the truth.
“Instead, there’s this passing of words… I mean, how difficult is it to just say ‘Raeesah, tell the truth’. How difficult is it to do that? Not very. Anybody should know how you can do that,” she said. /TISG