SINGAPORE: Eight public service officers have been referred to the police after a review of 191 officers' property transactions, Coordinating Minister for Public Services Chan Chun Sing told parliament on Tuesday (Oct 6).

The review followed a working paper by the United States-based National Bureau of Economic Research, which identified 2007 to 2011 as the period of concern.

The Public Service Division extended the scope to 2014 as a matter of prudence, Mr Chan said, because many new MRT station locations continued to be announced after 2011.

Based on administrative records, PSD identified officers in agencies involved in rail planning who bought property between 2007 and 2014 close to locations later announced as MRT stations, he said.

PSD assessed factors including the officer's role at the time, whether the officer had access to relevant non-public information, and the timing and circumstances of the transaction.

Of the 191 officers, eight were found to have cases that warrant further examination, said Mr Chan, who is also defence minister. Further checks are ongoing.

“This could be due to the specific circumstances surrounding the purchase, or that we currently do not have adequate information to exclude the case from further review. We have referred these cases to the police,” he said.

He stressed that a referral does not mean that wrongdoing has been established, and that the police will look into the facts independently and due process will be followed.

The government will consider what the review reveals about the effectiveness of existing safeguards and the gaps to address, he said.

SAFEGUARDS IN PLACE Members of Parliament asked whether more safeguards were needed, such as more systematic cross-checking and extending declaration requirements to other family members or cohabitants.

Mr Chan said the public service "regularly reviews its rules and has strengthened them over time".

"We will consider what the present review tells us about their effectiveness and whether there are gaps to address. Any further measures should be proportionate to the risks and practical to implement, while allowing legitimate personal transactions to proceed with appropriate oversight," he said.

"Even with strong safeguards, no system can eliminate the possibility of wrongdoing entirely. We must therefore continue to reduce the opportunities for abuse, maintain effective means of detection, and act firmly where evidence of wrongdoing emerges." Access to sensitive information is controlled and given on a need-to-know basis, he said. Such information is subject to security classification and handling requirements, system and physical access controls and, where appropriate, audit, monitoring and project-specific safeguards.

Officers must also follow declaration and approval requirements for personal interests and transactions. Since the 1990s, all officers have had to declare purchases of private property and, every year, any non-owner-occupied properties they hold.

"These requirements have been progressively tightened over the years. Today, where an officer possesses non-public information relevant to a transaction that he or she proposes to undertake, the officer must seek approval from the Head of Agency before proceeding," said Mr Chan.

The requirements also cover other personal transactions where the officer has relevant non-public information, and extend to transactions involving officers' spouses and financially dependent children.

"More broadly, an officer must not pass non-public information to a relative, friend or any other person for private gain. Doing so would breach the applicable rules and may also constitute an offence under the law, including the Official Secrets Act," he said.

Agencies handling particularly sensitive information may add requirements according to the risks involved. Mr Chan cited the Singapore Land Authority, which requires officers in relevant departments to declare to human resources any sale of property or land by themselves, their spouses or financially dependent children.

Contractors, consultants and other people outside the public service who can access sensitive government information are also bound by confidentiality, conflict-of-interest and information-handling requirements, he said.

Officers can also report suspected wrongdoing to their supervisors, human resources or agency heads, which gives agencies another way to learn of possible misconduct, he said.

PROTECTING OFFICERS' CONFIDENTIALITY Asked whether more safeguards were needed to protect public officers' confidentiality, Mr Chan said different considerations were involved.

The National Bureau of Economic Research report's authors identified the property buyers through the Singapore Government Directory Interactive, an online directory that lists the names, email addresses and office telephone numbers of a large number of public officers. It is freely accessible in Singapore and overseas. The directory was pared down from Jul 1 to combat the risk of scams.

"Certain information on property transactions and ownership is already publicly accessible for legitimate reasons. Separately, some information about civil servants' appointments and responsibilities also needs to be available in the public domain," said Mr Chan.

"We should not restrict access to such information simply because it may be linked across different sources. At the same time, the government will continue to ensure that personal information about public officers which does not need to be made public is appropriately protected." The government has no information about who funded the research, he said, but emphasised that it is assessing the working paper's claims on their merits, including the methodology, available evidence and underlying facts.