[SINGAPORE] Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh’s conviction has implications for party leaders Sylvia Lim and Faisal Manap and will be part of upcoming discussions in Parliament, said Leader of the House Indranee Rajah.

All three WP MPs had disputed the findings in the 2022 report by the Committee of Privileges (COP) that looked into former MP Raeesah Khan’s lies to the House, hence Parliament had postponed making a decision then, she noted in a statement on Dec 22.

Now that Singh’s case has concluded and he has been found guilty of lying, these matters will be raised for discussion in January, she said.

The parliamentary committee had said in its report that if the three leaders had guided Khan to repeat her lie in Parliament, then such conduct would be unbecoming of a parliamentarian, and would amount to contempt of Parliament.

Lim is the party’s chair while Faisal is vice-chair.

Indranee was responding to media queries after her statement on Dec 17 that Parliament will discuss in January an “appropriate response” to Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh’s conviction for lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP) looking into Khan’s case.

The COP had in February 2022 released a report which said the “appropriate sanctions” for the three WP leaders – Singh, Lim and Faisal – for their roles in Khan’s untruths to the House and to the COP would be deferred until the end of investigations or criminal proceedings against him.

In her Dec 22 statement, Indranee reiterated some of the findings of the COP, including Faisal’s refusal to answer the COP’s queries that was referred to the public prosecutor for possible contempt of Parliament. After investigation, he was later issued a police advisory, she noted.

The COP also found that both Lim and Faisal had lied under oath by denying that they had told Khan to hide her untruth in an August 2021 meeting.

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“The COP’s findings have been borne out by the Court judgments,” she added.

Indranee had said on Dec 17 that separate to the WP’s internal processes, it was necessary for Parliament to take notice of the Leader of the Opposition’s actions and convictions for lying under oath. She added that lying under oath is a serious matter.

“In some countries, leaders who have lied, cheated or flagrantly broken the law still escape any legal or political consequences. We cannot accept such standards in Singapore.”

Indranee, who is Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance, also described the facts of the case as “disturbing”.

On Dec 4, the High Court upheld Singh’s Feb 17 conviction on two counts of lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP), which included a S$14,000 fine.

In her Dec 17 statement, Indranee also noted some findings from the court proceedings, including that the decision to come clean was made only when former WP chief Low Thia Khiang advised Singh and WP chair Sylvia Lim on Oct 11, 2021, that the truth should be clarified in Parliament.

After Khan confessed in the House to lying, Singh formed a disciplinary committee comprising himself, Lim and WP vice-chair Faisal Manap, to find out why Khan had lied.

“This was a travesty, given that the three of them already knew about the lie months earlier, and it was in fact Singh who guided Khan to continue with the lie,” Indranee said.

None of these facts were disclosed when the disciplinary panel was formed, she added. THE STRAITS TIMES

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