Senior MFA official Lim Cheng Hoe investigated by police for filing improper claims overseas
Posted by temasektimes on June 21, 2012
Six months after two senior officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs were suspended and charged for corruption, another high-ranking civil servant found himself under probe again for alleged improper conduct.
Lim Cheng Hoe (pic left, source: internet), the Chief of protocol from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is currently being investigated by the police over allegations of filing improper claims for expenses incurred during visits overseas.
MFA suspended him on Tuesday and the case was referred to the Commercial Affairs Department (MFA) for further investigations. Mr Micheal Tan Keng Siong is now acting chief of protocol at the ministry.
Speaking to queries from the state media, a MFA spokesman said:
“Mr Lim has served MFA and Singapore very well for 38 years, and we are very sad that this has happened.”
THE TEMASEK TIMES 
Jaded said
earn fat salary still do this type of thing. I thought paying high salaries will prevent corruption?
Realist said
Why no news about ministers ?
Time is ripe for one to appear.
icefire said
he server Singapore very well ? or he have cover up his acts very well … i highly doubt all the PAPaya members to be honest and clean
icefire said
all so highly paid … should sentence this pple to death sentence !!!
voice fron the origin singapore said
Corruption
dog of the dogs said
They whole ststem must be very wrong . Everyone wants more and more.
Bernard Deng said
Oh yes,he served himself equally well too.
Jane Wong said
I believe that there are so many more except that they have yet to investigate further…..all the tax payers’ money…..All this while these people have been spending and enjoying all the perks. I won’t be surprised many more high profile names surfacing later….haiz…
ng p y said
38 years is a long period of time and to have serve at the Ministry for the period certainly deserved some merits. Why put him is a bad limelight similarly to the sex saga where many prominent people were brought to much ambarassment publicly, internal departmentmental punishment would be sufficient to have disgrace him and for him to lose all benefits that is punishment enough. Honestly I hope that the Authorities will consider the consequences which will weight down much hatred on the Authorities for being non compassionate
Caster said
Y feel sad for these ppl?? Probably because the fact that he worked for 38yrs, he knew the system then that’s y he would do such a thing. This is 1 case whereby he is caught. Imagine how many more cases n how much more claims which he or others had improper filed during the last 38yrs minus this particular incidents. System is not without flaws. When cases like this surface, someone must step up, admit the flaws, learn from the mistakes n changed the system to prevent future occurance.
Ron said
He has so much to lose if found guilty… his retirement gratuity…his income…his prestige. What a waste.
When I was travelling on business, I will not even touch anything inside the room fridge. And I will put a single expense on unless I have incurred it. Why cheat on small peanuts when you have such a good job and income?
Lim said
This puts to death the fallacy that we need to pay exorbitantly to deter corruption and greed.
Julie Ong said
Lim, I agree with you. It was Mr Lee Kuan Yew who argued like hell that top dollars will prevent corruption and also draw in the most capable people. I think he is a damn persuasive debater except that what he said lack credence and substance. A person truly inspired by noble ideals and have a heart for others will simply do their best and even sometimes do it for free!
Therefore I urge all Singaporeans to choose strong, wise and importantly kind heartedmen and women to run the country. Greedy ones like what we have now are NUTS (not up to standard) and in the end we the citizens will lose out big time. Never mind the damage they have done thus far.
If they continue with their heartless and nonsensical policies prepare now for General Election 2016 and be rid of them.
Meantime look on the bright side of things. It’s still a beautiful world!
龙的传人 said
为何会发生，咱们国家对你不好吗?
George said
There are more of them that needs to be brought to justice. If CPIB is indepentant & not under the pm office , many cases would surface. I want every wrong doing of these public servants to face justice rather than to resign from services to quash their actions.
Seb said
More coming out of the woodwork…and the beat goes on!
mahbok tan said
In Singapore we do not have whistle blower from the intel dept .
If we do have some honest and capable whistle blower from the intel dept , guess we will hear more of these kind of stories.
LeeKY or LeeHL , high pay salary are just excused for a man of GREED.Period.
Malcolm said
I wonder how deep the rabbit hole will go.
dan2429E said
They are bringing this up so as to side-track the Woffles Wu mis-judgement.
solaris8899 said
million $$$ salary to justify high profile work…to avoid corruption?
how many cases so far in this year…more to come?
how come no reply from papa?
lonewidow said
i think that the ministry should not put Mr Lim under this kind of media attention. Not to suggest a cover-up but an internal punishment is severe enough. He has serve our country well 38 years is a long period of time maybe it may just be a case of him wanting to settle the claims quickly and accidentally input the wrong number into the system for claims. This incident unlike the previous involving high-ranking civil servants, is not as severe and he should be retiring soon. The government could be saving on the pension that they are supposed to give to him. However if he is found guilty, the money from his pension may soon go into the bonuses of the other PAP government officials.
lau pheng said
so sad… pray for him la…
Ron said
A thief is a thief. No need to say it in many words. Stealing public tax money via fraudulent expenses is unacceptable. If he is found guilty, serve him right.
taxpayers money said
u r right, a thief is a thief, just like Ah Lee Baba and his 80 thieves, helping themselves to tax payers money.
Any idea how much is Ah Lee Baba and son worth ? many officials also want some for themselves lah!
Ben said
CPIB should under PM? high paid no corruption ? Taxpayer why always feed them so fat! Why must I be Singaporean ? I have to paid double on my medical bill!!!!what to be proud ?!! And I serve NS yet what benefit I have ?!!!
spotlessleopard said
We pay the highest salary to Senior Civil Servants and our Politcial Leaders are also teh highest paid in the World…and yet there is corruption…it does say that High Salaries is NO Guaranttee against corrupt practices….
We need a change in Government…in GE2016
WHISTLE BLOWER said
Talking about honesty & integrity as I understand from my friend that such practices for filing improper claims overseas are commonplace & practiced rampantly just that they don’t get detected & reported only!
There was this Director of Procurement & Logistics at ST Electronics Ltd (located at 24 Ang Mo Kio Street 65) who frequently went on overseas business trips to Shenzhen & Shanghai in China as well as Taipei & Kaohsiung in Taiwan yearly & each time, when he comes back to Singapore, he will inflate his claims on expenses incurred for his overseas business trips.
Most of the times when he went to Taiwan, he will prearrange for his wife who is a Taiwanese in advance to meet up with him over there usually in Taipei and thereafter, the expenses incurred by the wife is also added to his account so that he could claim back all the total overseas business expenditure from his company.
Each time when he returns back from his overseas trip, he will submit his excessive & frivolous claims at inflated amount to claim back from his company as overseas expense and this malpractice had been going on for more than 10 years without detection as nobody dares to audit & check on his overseas & miscellaneous claims submitted so far.