Singapore’s former transport minister Subramaniam Iswaran has been handed down a one-year jail sentence for accepting SGD 403,300 ($313,200) as a public servant as well as attempting to obstruct justice.
Despite having earlier denied any wrongdoing and vowing to clear his name, Iswaran entered a guilty plea to four counts of obtaining expensive objects and one charge of obstruction of justice on the first day of his trial in late September.
Iswaran, a senior cabinet member who served as minister for transport between 2021 and 2024, came under the scrutiny of the city-state’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau last year when a high-level probe was launched.
The charges are all said to relate to expensive gifts, ranging from VIP event tickets to international travel received from local property tycoon Ong Beng Seng and building contractor Lum Kok Seng, both of whom had business dealings with entities under ministries that Iswaran was in charge of over several years.
This amounted to an offence under Section 165 of Singapore’s penal code.
The obstruction charge was a result of Iswaran, after a 2022 trip to Doha on Ong’s private jet, asking the businessman to issue him with an invoice after learning that authorities had seized the jet’s logbook as part of their investigations.
For this charge, he could have been sentenced to up to seven years.
Singaporean politician Chee Hong Tat was appointed as transport minister following Iswaran’s resignation in January from his ministerial position, his parliamentary seat, and as a member of the ruling People’s Action Party.
