By: 永久浪客/Forever Vagabond
It was revealed in court on Thursday (8 Sep) that the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) had made a mistake in issuing a new passport to a criminal suspect when his previous one was impounded by CPIB.
Former A*Star employee and new citizen, Yu Jiarong, was under the investigation of CPIB for corruption 2 years ago in 2014. He was interviewed by CPIB and was later released on bail. At the time, his passport was impounded by CPIB to prevent him from leaving the country.
Last year in Sep while the investigation was still on-going, Yu applied for a new passport at the ICA. He told ICA that he had misplaced his passport and ICA duly replaced a new one for him.
He then tried to book a flight back to China on Sep 24 but was arrested at Changi Airport.
It was revealed in court that Yu came to work in Singapore from China 16 years ago. In 2008 he joined A*Star IME as a facility engineer and, both he and his wife became new citizens.
While working for IME, evidence showed that he had accepted bribes of more than $200,000. He was responsible for recommending quotations for services to the IME.
The companies involved in the corruption cases with Yu were named in court:
• Contech Engineering
• Techfield Engineering Services
• Yield Engineering Solutions
• Techfield Solutions
These companies were awarded contracts by IME after Yu was given a sum of money as “commission”.
In all, Yu pleaded guilty to 5 corruption charges and one of lying to ICA that he had misplaced his Singapore passport. Thirteen other corruption charges were considered during his sentencing.
Yu was convicted and ordered to pay a penalty of $202,430, or 40 weeks’ jail in default by the court. He did not pay the penalty and decided to serve sentence.
It’s not known why ICA failed to know about the impound of Yu’s passport by CPIB.
ICA, which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs, performs immigration and registration functions such as the issuing of travel documents and identity cards to Singapore citizens. It also issues various immigration passes and permits to foreigners.
CPIB, on the other hand, comes under the Prime Minister’s Office. From the incident, it appears that MHA and PMO do not seem to communicate well among themselves.