Lee Yuet Heng had pleaded guilty to two graft charges in August and he will be sentenced on Nov 18. - Photo: ST
SINGAPORE: The prosecution has called for a S$70,000 fine for a former deputy project director at a wholly owned subsidiary of water treatment firm Hyflux who accepted bribes, including a loan of more than S$27,000.
Lee Yuet Heng, now 74, was then working for water management solutions firm Hydrochem.
He has since repaid the loan.
He had accepted the bribes from Li Hongda, then the managing director of construction company Zhengda Corporation, to advance its business interests with Hydrochem.
On Tuesday (Oct 29), Deputy Public Prosecutor Suriya Prakash told the court that Lee, who is a Singaporean, had abused his position and that the loan amount was “not insignificant”.
Defence lawyer Benedict Eoon, however, urged the court to sentence Lee to a fine of $38,000, adding that his client’s culpability in the offences was low and the harm caused was slight.
Lee had pleaded guilty to two graft charges in August and he will be sentenced on Nov 18.
Li, then 59, was dealt with in court earlier. The Chinese national was fined $38,000.
Hyflux made headlines in recent years over unrelated charges involving founder and former chief executive Olivia Lum Ooi Lin.
Lum, then 61, was charged with violations of the Securities and Futures Act in November 2022.
For the current case, DPP Suriya told the court in August that Hydrochem handled Hyflux’s construction projects.
In 2012, Hydrochem signed two contracts with Zhengda for the supply of items that included labour, material and equipment for reinforced concrete works.
At the time of the offences, Hydrochem was building a power plant in Tuas. Lee became a deputy project director in early 2014 and got to know Li soon after.
In earlier proceedings, the DPP said: “While he was still employed at Hydrochem, (Lee told Li) that his role at Hydrochem was on a contractual basis and that he thought that Hydrochem would no longer employ him after the completion of the power plant project.
“The accused asked Hongda whether there were any vacancies at Zhengda. Hongda told the accused that he required a general manager to run Zhengda’s operations and to attend meetings when he was not around.”
Around mid-2014, they reached an agreement that Zhengda would hire Lee as a general manager after his Hydrochem contract expired.
The court heard that Zhengda had to perform additional work after it completed works linked to the two 2012 contracts.
Lee then told Li that Zhengda could inflate the prices charged for this additional work. Li then told Zhengda’s contracts manager to liaise with Lee on the matter.
Meanwhile, Lee told a Hydrochem assistant manager to work with the contracts manager on the orders.
Zhengda then submitted a set of orders with inflated prices in June 2014, but the assistant manager did not submit any of those orders for approval.
Some time in 2014, Li paid for Lee’s air ticket to Hong Kong and settled the payment for Lee’s stay there. Court documents did not disclose the amount spent.
On or around Sept 11 that year, Li paid out more than $27,000 in loans to Lee.
In April 2015, Hyflux’s management conducted an investigation and found out that the price of a contract involving the repair of a roof had been inflated.
The company terminated Lee’s employment, and he joined Zhengda the following month.
The DPP said that Hyflux did not suffer any losses as a result of the inflated prices. - The Straits Times/ANN
