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Bertha HarianBertha Harian

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What’s the case about again?

I say, can someone remind me again what Ng Boon Gay is supposed to be charged with? Seems like all we’re getting is sexy, salacious details of whether he did or she did and what they did or did not do. Thank goodness that TNP had two paragraphs to tell me what this case is all about.
The prosecution said on Monday that where a public servant obtains gratification – from a person who has or seeks to have business dealings with the Government, he is presumed to have done so corruptly. Even if the public servant is unable to make good on the favour sought, all that is needed is for him to believe that the gratification is offered as an inducement.
From reading the first line, if any civil servant receives a pen or pencil or oral sex or intercourse from someone who has business dealings of any sort with the GOVERNMENT, (gosh….how many people would that be?) then he or she has already fouled up. I suppose the G would say of course we wouldn’t consider a pen or pencil as a “gratification’’ (unless it’s a designer pen that the philandering professor receives from his ex-student), so please trust us to make sure we prosecute right. That’s the problem isn’t it? Laws are framed so broadly that you don’t even know if you could be doing something wrong. By that first line, Ng Boon Gay is kaput.
Then comes the second line on whether he returned the favour or not. Apparently, he said something about having a couple of hundred thousand left in the budget, which Cecilia Sue said “helped’’ . I must say defence counsel Tan Chee Meng was pretty good in his cross-examination, so good that even more men have been named and a certain mysterious Linda….and Cecilia Sue got totally confused about when Ng told her what about the budget.
What about this clause “all that is needed is for him to believe that the gratification is offered as an inducement’’. I guess we have to be mind readers now.
I suppose the defence strategy is to show that Cecilia Sue wasn’t all business with contracts on her mind. That is, she didn’t offer gratification as an inducement. Nor was she the unwilling party worried about not getting contracts if she said no. That is, she didn’t acquiesce to offering gratification because she felt threatened by Ng. I don’t want to go into subjudice territory, go read the newspapers to make up your mind if this was a willing buyer/willing seller relationship – they all have the same details.
BTW, can someone in the media find out who are those burly men who surround her in and out of court? Cops? Hired bodyguards? Big-sized friends?

PS. This TNP pix is priceless….Just look at the wife!

 

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