SINGAPORE: At a dialogue at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Wednesday (Nov 19), Prime Minister Lawrence Wong touched on a number of global and local issues, spanning from relations between China and the United States, a possible US visit, current tensions between Japan and China, energy, ASEAN, and even a ghost town in Michigan called Singapore.
At one point, however, John Micklethwait, who moderated the dialogue, asked a series of questions about Singapore as a financial hub, specifically about the influx of wealthy people coming to the city-state in relation to money laundering.
As Mr Micklethwait pointed out, not everyone who has come to Singapore has been “virtuous,” and PM Wong replied, “Yes, we got the illicit flows.”
The moderator then cited Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat, who in Parliament earlier this month quoted the Chinese proverb “when we open the windows, some flies may also enter.”
PM Wong then acknowledged, “Sometimes we get more than flies.”
Mr Micklethwait then fired back by asking, “Yes, but how many flies can Singapore tolerate? And do you need a bigger fly swatter?”
To this, the Prime Minister replied, “We do have quite a big fly swatter.”
He explained that Singapore takes the matter of illegal money flows very seriously, but added that the situation is not unique to the city-state, as it is something all financial hubs need to deal with.
“It is not so much about that there is an incident, there are bound to be incidents, and they are bound to be suspicious transactions, and with intelligence, with cooperation across different countries, eventually we get to the bottom of it.
The key is, what do you do? And we are very stringent, and we take swift action, and we are determined to protect `our reputation, because that is what keeps Singapore going – a trusted business and financial centre.”
PM Wong’s remarks on the matter have received a lot of attention, perhaps more than the others he made during the dialogue.
Some netizens commenting on the matter, however, appear to believe that Singapore should wield a stronger fly swatter against money laundering.
“But the sentences meted out to the money launderers in the 2023 series of cases were *extremely* lenient – some of them were out of jail having finished serving their sentences within 1 month of conviction.
That may be seen as using the fly swatter to administer a slap on the wrist.
The Singapore Government has also argued that it is the risk of getting caught that is the main deterrent. With respect, I do not think this argument holds up. What matters more is the sentence,” wrote one Facebook user.
To this, another replied, “Perhaps we should stop using the fly swatter and bring out a swatter of heavier weight class, even featherweight is heftier.” /TISG
