Jail for man who bribed SMU Academy associate director

Over at least 15 months, a director of a firm dealing in electronic products gave bribes totalling more than $216,000 to a business development associate director at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Academy.

Kenneth Lum Hsien Loong, 47, who was from a firm called International Alliance Marketing (IAM) at the time, committed the offences from June 2018 to October 2019 to advance its business interest with the academy.

On Oct 2, he was sentenced to two years and four months’ jail after he was convicted of 10 graft charges involving Christopher Tan Toh Nghee, 46, who is no longer working for SMU Academy.

The prosecution said: “The accused wanted to... secure IAM’s position and ensure that IAM continued as a marketing partner and call centre management service provider of SMU Academy.

“The accused was successful in his efforts... as IAM was renewed as a marketing partner and call centre management service provider for at least two further terms.”

According to the prosecution, by committing the offences, Lum earned more than $633,000 in total.

Senior District Judge Ong Hian Sun had earlier convicted Lum of the charges after a trial. He was the fourth person linked to the case to be dealt with in court.

Tan, who accepted bribes totalling more than $472,000 from multiple directors of different firms, was sentenced to three years and six months in jail in July.

Cher Kheng Than, then 46, was sentenced to a year in jail in February while Jeffery Long Chee Kin, then 45, was sentenced to 13 months’ jail, in September 2023.

Lum got to know Tan through a mutual friend in 2016 and found out that the latter was working for SMU.

In earlier proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Eugene Phua told the court that Lum then called Tan to try to market IAM’s services, asking if SMU needed any audio-visual equipment to be built or installed.

In or around April 2017, the university set up the SMU Academy, which is its specialised institute and professional training arm.

Tan was deployed to its Service Operations and Business Improvement (Sobi) sub-department and became an associate director of business development.

He was personally involved in the Sobi’s operations, managing the academic staff and participants of its courses.

Sobi also engaged partners to assist in the marketing of its courses and IAM was one of them from 2017 to 2020.

DPP Phua said that Lum was the first person Tan approached around March 2017.

Lum agreed to perform general marketing services, and Tan sent him a draft service agreement on March 29 that year.

The service agreement was executed the following month with a fixed term of 12 months and an option for renewal.

Some time after Lum accepted Tan’s offer to be a marketing partner with SMU, Tan asked Lum how much he could afford to give him (Tan), said the DPP.

The prosecutor added: “The accused understood that he had to give Tan a portion of IAM’s earnings in order to advance the business interests of IAM with SMU Academy.”

Among other things, Lum then proposed to Tan that he would give the latter 20 per cent of his monthly earnings from SMU Academy.

According to court documents, Tan then asked Lum if he could give him a bit more. Lum agreed and they settled on 25 per cent per month, said DPP Phua.

The prosecutor also said that since early 2018, Tan made records on his mobile phone of payments Lum and the other parties had made to him

The court heard in earlier proceedings that in July 2019, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) received a complaint that Tan had been soliciting kickbacks from multiple vendors who were involved with marketing SMU Academy courses under his charge.

DPP Phua said: “Tan had deleted the note in the morning of Nov 26, 2019, upon being contacted by the CPIB for investigation. He had done so as he did not want the CPIB to know about the record he had kept.

“However, he failed to delete the note from the recycle bin of the Notepad application, and the note was subsequently restored during investigation by the CPIB.”

In March 2021, Lum admitted to his offences in his statements to CPIB. He is represented by lawyers Raeza Ibrahim and Yap Zhan Ming.

In their mitigation plea, the defence said that Lum had “no choice” but to agree to the corrupt payments and Tan had threatened Lum that payments from SMU Academy would be delayed.

On Oct 2, the court heard that Lum intends to appeal against his conviction and sentence. He still has multiple other pending graft charges and these will be dealt with at a later date.