Singapore—Ambassador at Large Tommy Koh wrote in a July 25 Facebook post on the current Covid situation in Singapore the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) should respond to “serious allegations” made in Nikkei Asia that “KTV lounges are controlled by organised crime and are illegal brothels.”
Prof Koh started his post by commending The Straits Times Senior Health Correspondent Salma Khalik, whose column last Friday (Jul 23) contained suggestions for dealing with the pandemic, and as he was “inspired” by Ms Khalik’s commentary, he also opined on what Singapore can do to address various situations.
He mentioned KTV lounges, from where many of the current infections came about. Prof Koh wrote that while KTV lounge owners and operators who violated the law “should be punished,” he is unsure “whether it is right to punish all KTV lounges.”
“Collective punishment is not a good thing,” he added.
He pointed out what Mr Andy Wong, whom Nikkei Asia describes as “a political and business intelligence analyst based in Singapore” had written, adding that he believes the “MHA should respond to these serious accusations.”
In a July 23 opinion piece, Mr Wong pointed out that 192 Covid-19 infections are directly linked to an outbreak centered around KTV lounges.
He pointed to the darker side of these establishments, writing that they are “not innocent family-friendly affairs” but “are fronts for illegal brothels run by organized crime cartels,” similar to “another outbreak in Taiwan earlier this year.”
Mr Wong added that the KTV lounge outbreak “exposed the pernicious role of organized vice enterprises in Singapore, and the institutional failure of the country’s much-vaunted law enforcement to clamp down on them.”
He also wrote that these lounges operating for decades despite the country’s reputation for moral policing and “being hard on crime” is an open secret.
“Run behind the scenes by the same organized crime groups, these illegal brothels have become a normalized, even integral, part of many business dealings — particularly among local and mainland Chinese business communities — as well as serving as money laundering fronts for the criminal enterprises bankrolling their operations,” wrote Mr Wong.
He did not mince words in calling to account the authorities he believes made the current upswing in Covid infections possible, adding that the foreign sex workers who had been allowed to enter Singapore despite tight border restrictions is also an “institutional failure.”
Moreover, Mr Wong wrote that MHA, as “the sole overseer of vice policing and the city-state’s border controls,” has not taken any responsibility for this failure, as well as the evident border policy loophole.”
At the end of his piece, he added, “The latest COVID outbreak not only necessitates a plan for Singapore to lift domestic restrictions and reestablish international connectivity, but demands that its leaders take responsibility for the institutional failures that caused it. Watching disingenuous ministers feign retrospective shock and surprise at how the latest outbreak occurred no longer cuts it.
Decades of institutional failures in dealing with the organized crime cartels running illegal KTV brothels have not only seriously damaged public health, but have significantly set back Singapore’s public relations campaign to demonstrate that it has the pandemic under control.”
TISG has reached out to MHA for comment.
/TISG