Company director bribed SMRT assistant buyer after failing to win 2 contracts with them

Samuel Devaraj
The Straits Times
Jun 22, 2023

After failing to win two contracts with SMRT, a director of a company that supplied parts began bribing an assistant buyer from the transport company to obtain confidential information.

Between 2017 and 2019, Wong King Mooi gave SMRT’s Soh Choon Heng at least $29,500 in cash in total on at least eight occasions.

On Thursday, the 48-year-old Malaysian was sentenced to four months’ jail and fined $4,000 after she pleaded guilty to three corruption charges. Two similar charges were taken into consideration during her sentencing.

Soh, who had accepted bribes from the directors of three firms, was sentenced to 21 months’ jail in January 2023.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Louis Ngia said Wong was acquainted with Soh in the course of their work.

Wong was a director and shareholder at CEE Technologies and directed the daily operations of the company, including its quotations to compete for contracts.

The company supplied SMRT parts for its operations, such as those for its passenger service doors and train gearboxes.

As SMRT’s assistant buyer, Soh was responsible for supporting procurement and sourcing activities.

When SMRT required procurement of items below $200,000, assistant buyers would invite vendors to submit their quotations via SMRT’s procurement system by a stipulated date.

CEE failed to win a contract to supply SMRT with parts for its passenger service doors in 2015. It also failed to get a contract in 2017.

When Wong asked Soh why her company did not win the projects, Soh offered to help by providing her with confidential information of previous and current pricing lists in contracts CEE was bidding for if Wong would “help” him.

DPP Ngia said they both understood this to mean that Wong should corruptly pay Soh for the information.

Soh Choon Heng, who had accepted bribes from the directors of three firms, was sentenced to 21 months’ jail in January 2023. Photo: The Straits Times

Wong agreed, knowing that CEE could use the confidential information to guide its bids to SMRT. She also knew that it was against SMRT’s regulations for Soh to provide her such information.

Between 2017 and 2019, when Wong wished to quote for contracts with SMRT, Soh would supply her with the confidential information relating to either the competitors’ quotations in the ongoing bidding, or past ones.

Soh relayed the confidential information to Wong either via telephone calls or by sending her e-mails with attachments of the information.

Wong then used the information to adjust CEE’s quotations to SMRT.

She withdrew cash from her personal bank account to pass Soh the money in an envelope.

Wong admitted in investigations that Soh’s information helped CEE gain an unfair advantage over other bidders in SMRT tenders.

On one occasion in July 2018, Soh sent Wong an e-mail containing the price list submitted by a competitor for passenger service doors.

Wong then adjusted CEE’s quotation to make it more competitive, and gave $4,500 to Soh.

However, despite the lower price offered by CEE, SMRT ultimately decided not to award it the contract as it had begun investigating the company for allegedly supplying it with counterfeit products.

For each count of corruption, Wong could have been jailed for up to five years and fined up to $100,000.