CrimsonLogic CEO among those accused of offering bribe of $35,000
By Selina Lum
Oct 26, 2005
The Straits Times
THE chief executive of CrimsonLogic, a government-linked IT company, was charged with corruption yesterday along with two of his senior managers and a former legal counsel.
The four are accused of agreeing to give a bribe of $35,000 to the former head of Carrefour Singapore's IT department in exchange for recommending that the hypermarket award an IT project to CrimsonLogic .
Chief executive Velusamy Mathivanan, 50, was charged along with Tan Geok Hoon, 47, vice-president of the trade and logistic business unit, financial controller Thiagayson Sundram Pillai, 52, and former legal counsel Alvin Lim Keng Hong, 41, who has since left the company.
The appearance of the four in court marked the end of a year-long probe by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB).
The bureau had received a complaint in September last year that the head of Carrefour's IT department, Mr Matthias Tan Eng Haur, 35, had received a bribe from a vendor in return for awarding it an IT project worth $400,000.
Investigations revealed that Mr Tan first went to software company Gridnode, saying he would recommend to his management that it be awarded the project.
He also wanted a bribe of $60,000 but Gridnode refused to pay him, the bureau said in a statement.
Mr Tan then sought a $35,000 bribe from Mr Pang Kang Ming, the business development manager of CrimsonLogic, for recommending that the project be awarded to CrimsonLogic.
It is alleged Mr Pang sought the approval of Mathivanan, Tan, Pillai and Lim, who agreed to give the money to Mr Tan through a third party, Actinium Corporation.
It is understood that CrimsonLogic eventually clinched the project. But no money changed hands.
However, Mr Tan was fined $25,000 after he pleaded guilty in February to attempting to obtain a bribe from CrimsonLogic. A second charge of attempting to obtain a bribe from Gridnode was taken into consideration.
No plea was taken from the four accused yesterday. Mr Pang is named in the charges as an accomplice, but he was not charged.
Mathivanan, Tan and Pillai are represented by Mr Wendell Wong while Lim's lawyer is Mr Wee Pan Lee.
Each of them was granted bail of $35,000 and the case was fixed for a pre-trial conference on Nov 8.
In a press statement, CrimsonLogic said that measures have been taken to ensure business continuity so that customer service is not affected.
Mr Leong Peng Kiong, who is on the company's board of directors, has been appointed acting CEO.
Mathivanan, Tan and Pillai also issued a statement stating that they have offered their 'fullest cooperation' to the authorities. 'We will be patient and let due process take its course,' they said.
CrimsonLogic, formerly known as Singapore Network Services, was set up in 1988 by IE Singapore, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, PSA Corporation and SingTel.
The company counts among its partners government bodies including IE Singapore, the Supreme Court, the Land Transport Authority, and technology companies like Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems.
Among the IT solutions it has implemented are the electronic data systems TradeNet, Biznet, HDB ResaleNet and the Electronic Filing System in the courts.