Public housing will always be kept affordable for Singaporeans, both now and in the future, said Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. He gave this assurance during a dialogue on Jan 21 with close to 900 student participants across various education institutions at the University Cultural Centre in NUS. The Housing Board will continue to price new flats in relation to income and not the resale market, to make sure public housing remains affordable, PM Wong said. “We are able, through heavy government subsidies, through what we do on the HDB side, to provide assurance to all of you, both now and in the future, that we will always keep public housing affordable for Singaporeans,” he said. The Urban Land Institute (ULI), a global research organisation, considers home ownership affordable when the ratio of the median home price to median annual household income is below 5. This means that the flat’s price is within five times of the buyer’s annual household income. According to a ULI report released in May, the ratio in Singapore for HDB flats is 4.7. https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...c-housing-affordable-for-singaporeans-pm-wong

SINGAPORE: Three Singaporean men, including a Huawei account director and an engineer at Singapore's health tech agency, were charged with corruption as well as offences that include cheating on Wednesday (Jan 22). Their alleged offences revolve around giving or obtaining bribes as inducements to advance business interests. Peng Ming, the Huawei employee, was given four charges of corruptly giving gratifications, of which three are amalgamated. He also faces one count of cheating.  Ng Kah Siang, an engineer at Integrated Health Systems Information (IHiS), is accused of attempting to obtain S$20,000 (US$14,700) in bribes from Peng in November 2021. He faces five counts of corruptly obtaining gratifications. This was done as an inducement to advance Huawei's business interests with IHiS, the charge read.  IHiS has since been rebranded as Synapxe. It is a subsidiary of MOH Holdings, a holding company of Singapore's public healthcare institutions that sits under the Ministry of Health. Ng, 37, also allegedly attempted to obtain gratification of 1 per cent of a vendor's sales revenue and at least S$20,000 from a second vendor, as inducements to advance their business interests with IHiS, said the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB).   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 intentionally induce Huawei to approve a sponsored trip to Paris for the couple, the agency added. Between Mar 11 and Mar 20, 2022, Peng and the third accused Chiang Chee Seng - a senior sales director at Nera Telecommunications - allegedly conspired to give Ng and his wife gratification in the form of the Paris trip, which was valued at about S$18,265. This was done as an inducement to advance the business interests of Huawei and Nera with IHiS, CPIB said. "On several occasions between 2020 to 2022, Peng had also allegedly corruptly given gratification of about S$300 for each occasion in the form of entertainment to an engineer employed with IHiS, as an inducement to advance the business interests of Huawei with IHiS," the agency added. Ng is also accused of attempting to obtain gratification of 1 per cent of Nera's sales revenue from Chiang on another occasion to further advance the business interests of the communications solutions provider with IHiS. Chiang, 50, was handed one count of corruptly giving gratifications. All three men have yet to indicate if they will plead guilty or claim 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 Mar 5. "Singapore adopts a strict zero-tolerance approach towards corruption," said CPIB. "Organisations are strongly advised to put in place robust procedures, in areas such as procurement and internal audit, to prevent falling victim to corrupt acts by their employees." A corruption offence attracts a penalty of five years’ jail or a fine of up to S$100,000, or both.   Source: CNA/dy(sn)

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