Singapore Democrats
7 Aug 2008
Mr Malcolm Tan's distorted version of my meeting with the OA's office is misleading (see letter below).
He says that I had refused to give my passport for verification. This is a lie. One of the officers had asked to go through my passport. As the majority of my travels had taken place before my bankruptcy, she had no right to peruse it.
I therefore flagged the pages of my passport which contained my travels that took place after my bankruptcy and went through these with the officers. None of them objected.
One officer said that she merely wanted to confirm if I had gone on the trips where the travel permits were approved. I confirmed that I had gone on each of those trips.
It is clear that Mr Tan is not telling the truth.
Mr Tan also accuses me of not telling them who was paying for my trip. Again, this is an outright lie.
I had submitted to the OA's office on no less than four occasions the letter from Stanford University telling me that the university was paying for my trip. In part, the letter read:
"As mentioned, CDDRL (Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law) will cover the cost of your air and ground transportation. We will also buy a health insurance on your behalf ...You should not really need much money since all of your meals, transportation, and housing are covered by the program."
Contrary to what Mr Tan said in his letter, I never refused to answer who was paying for my trip to Stanford. Mr Tan is quite shameless in covering up the fact that the OA had full knowledge of this matter.
Mr Tan also says that I had refused to verify information of my income and expenditure statement. At the meeting, one of the officers told me that my creditors had wanted to know who was helping me financially. She said that if they wanted to remain anonymous, all I had to do was to put that in writing. That was done in my email to the officers on 9 July 2008.
How have I refused to verify the information requested?
The officers at the OA must come clean about why it refused my travel application to Stanford University. The initial reason they gave was that my previous trips had not benefited my creditors.
But after I sent them the letter from Stanford saying that the university would pay me an honorarium so that I could use that to pay the creditors, the OA changes tack and now says that the reason I was refused the travel permit was that I had been uncooperative.
Such flip-flopping is offensive.
To add insult to injury Mr Tan reveals the figures owed to my creditors. I remind Singaporeans that I was made bankrupt by the AG's Chambers over a court challenge on a Constitutional matter, not because of my own private dealings.
Still, it is wholly unethical for the OA's office to make public what they have been privately entrusted to manage. What has the information anything to do with this case? Even then, Mr Tan cannot get the figures right which adds to his unprofessionalism.
Lest the OA's office forgets, the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office is a body that is supposed to serve citizens. It is not a vehicle to further the agenda of the ruling party.
Chee Siok Chin
Singapore Democratic Party
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/793-oas-office-lied-about-chee-siok-chins-application-to-stanford
