8 public officers referred to police after review of property purchases near future MRT stations

SINGAPORE — Eight public officers whose property purchases warrant further examination have been referred to the police, said Coordinating Minister for Public Services Chan Chun Sing.

He told the House that the Public Service Division (PSD) has reviewed property transactions made by 191 public officers who worked in agencies involved in rail planning and bought properties between 2007 and 2014 near locations that were subsequently announced as MRT stations. 

Chan was responding on Oct 6 to MPs’ questions about a research paper that claimed civil servants involved in rail planning and their families had disproportionately purchased property near unannounced train stations. 

He said the eight cases were flagged either because of the specific circumstances surrounding the property purchase, or because there was not enough information to rule them out from further review. 

“Let me emphasise that a referral does not mean that wrongdoing has been established,” he added. “The police will look into the facts independently, and due process will be followed.”

The authors of the research paper published on Sept 11 by the US non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) had claimed they found “clear evidence of informed trading”.

They cited findings that purchase intensity near planned MRT stations was higher for civil servants than for a control group of non-civil servants with similar demographic attributes and housing consumption behaviours. The statistical association uncovered by the NBER paper concerned MRT announcements in or before 2011.

The PSD said in a statement on Sept 25 that the Government was reviewing home purchases made between 2007 and 2011 by officers involved in rail planning at the time, in cases where the properties were close to sites subsequently announced as MRT stations.

On Oct 6, Chan said the Government has carried out its own checks using government records and chose to extend the review from 2011 to 2014 as a matter of prudence, as many new MRT station locations were announced in the years after 2011.

Asked by Alex Yam (Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC) how long the review would take and whether the Government would release a full report, Chan said it would be completed as soon as possible, with any relevant findings published in full.

As for how many transactions could ultimately fall within the extended review period, Chan replied that 191 cases have been reviewed so far, with more to be examined if further information warranted it.

To Yam’s other question of why the pattern identified by the paper appeared to disappear after 2011, Chan said there was currently no reason to believe that something had fundamentally changed after that year, but this would be examined as part of the review.

Twelve other MPs had filed questions on the matter, with several asking if present safeguards may be strengthened in light of the findings. 

They include WP MP Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) who asked if the scope of asset declaration rules for public officers will be expanded to cover their parents and financially independent children, beyond the officer’s spouse or financially dependent children. 

Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang) and WP MP He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC) asked if officers’ property declarations are cross-checked against their access to planning information.

Responding, Chan said any further measures should be proportionate to the risks and practical to implement, while allowing legitimate personal transactions to proceed with appropriate oversight.

He also said the public service regularly reviews its rules and has strengthened them over time, adding that it will consider whether there are gaps to address, based on the present review.

But he noted that even with strong safeguards, no system can eliminate the possibility of wrongdoing entirely. “We must therefore continue to reduce the opportunities for abuse, maintain effective means of detection, and act firmly where evidence of wrongdoing emerges,” he added.

Elysa Chen (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) asked if public officers, contractors and consultants involved in infrastructure planning are subject to different declaration or transaction rules than the wider Public Service.

To this, Chan said agencies have safeguards covering persons outside the public service who are given access to sensitive government information, pointing out that contractors, consultants, and other personnel are subject to appropriate confidentiality, conflict of interest, and information handling requirements. 

Agencies may also impose additional requirements on them depending on the nature and sensitivity of the work involved, he added.

MPs also asked whether checks should extend to other infrastructure projects and property transactions, including schools or land-use decisions, as well as property sales before the announcement of the 15-month wait-out period in September 2022.

Chan said the Government has not undertaken such a general review, as the present checks were limited to the specific assertions in the NBER working paper about rail planning and property purchases over a particular period.

“We should not assume that officers with access to non-public information have misused it,” he added. 

The Government would, however, look into cases where specific information gives reasonable grounds for concern in another context, he said.

Asked by Rachel Ong (Tanjong Pagar GRC) how the Government would avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest in deciding whether to refer cases for further investigation, Chan said the PSD’s review is meant to establish the relevant facts, not determine criminal culpability. 

Where the facts disclose grounds for concern, the matter will be referred to the appropriate law enforcement agency, whether the Police or the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, depending on the circumstances, he said. That agency will look into the matter independently and determine the appropriate course of action.

To Ong’s other question about the funding of the NBER research, Chan said the Government does not have information about its sources of funding. 

“More fundamentally, our approach is to assess the substantive claims in the paper on their merits – by examining the methodology, the available evidence and, most importantly, the underlying facts,” he added.

As the NBER paper used private-property transaction records from 1995 to 2019 and linked buyers to records of civil servants in the Singapore Government Directory Interactive, Gho Sze Kee (Mountbatten) asked if additional safeguards are needed to protect officers’ confidentiality.

Chan said certain information on property transactions and ownership is already publicly accessible for legitimate reasons, and some information about civil servants’ appointments and responsibilities also needs to be available in the public domain.

“We should not restrict access to such information simply because it may be linked across different sources,” he added, while assuring the MP that the Government will continue to ensure that personal information about public officers which does not need to be made public is “appropriately protected”.

Asked by Nominated MP Azhar Othman whether owning multiple properties should be considered a red flag for civil servants, Chan said the approach must also be fair to public officers, who would have legitimate housing and investment needs.

“The fact that they can have more than one property is not necessarily a red flag,” Chan said. 

Instead, he said it would be a red flag if an officer had assets “way beyond what your financial means or your income allow you to have”.

“But if you husband your resources well and you make judicious investments, that itself is not a red flag,” he added.