News Update Ex-CEO on corruption charge

By Elena Chong

THE former chief executive officer and managing director of listed AEM-Evertech was charged with corruption and making a false declarations on Wednesday.

Businessman Ang Seng Thor, 46, was the managing director of Ever Technologies in 2000 when he is said to have helped Mr Siow Sing Heng get permanent residence status in Singapore by allegedly making false declarations that Mr Siow was employed by the company when it was not true.

He is accused of giving bribes totalling $157,508 to Seagate Technology International assistant engineer Ho Sze Khee between October 2004 and March 2005 to advance the business interests of AEM-Evertech with Seagate.

He is alleged to have, together with ex-chairman Tok Kian You, 49, given a $50,000 bribe to Mr Tan Gek Chuan, an operations director of Infineon Technologies Malaysia, in show favour in relation to AEM-Everton's bid to supply four inspection machines to Infineon.

The alleged offence took place in Malacca, Malaysia, on a day in January 2004. Last month, the microelectronic components producer's former chief financial officer, Kammy Choo Swee Keng, 54, was sentenced to three months' jail for her role in helping to cover up more than $1 million kickbacks to customers. She is appealing against sentence.

Ang, represented by Mr Wendell Wong, is out on $75,000 bail and was given permission to travel overseas for business. The case has been fixed for a pre-trial conference on June 10. If convicted, he faces a fine of up to $100,000 and/or a jail term of up to five years on each bribery charge. For making a false declaration, the maximum penalty is a fine of up to $4,000 and a year's jail.

Just Ask What is COE in Singapore ?

Hi Allen Mercado unlike Philippine Singapore is a small island scare of land and resources therefore before you buy a car in Singapore, you have to get yourself a certificate that entitles you to make the purchase. It is all about controlling the number of cars on the road, so that traffic keeps moving. There even a joke during the ASEAN meeting, all PM of the ASEAN countries were present except for Goh Chok Tong who was represented by LKY. During a conversation, Dr. Mahathir of Malaysia says, "I came up with a bright idea to produce Proton cars and with a initial investment of M$1 billion, we now make M$50 million a year. That is what I call Money Mind." Mr. Suharto of Indonesia says: "I am going to start a car manufacturing plant to produce our National car for only $500 million RP and it will generate $50 RP million a year. Isn't that smarter." LKY of Singapore was not impress and say, "I told my Land Transport Minister to spend SGD$500 to buy a old printing machine and also made SGD$50 million a year." Everybody was taken aback and asks "What the f@!#k can you do with just SGD$500 only ?" And LKY replied "I use the machine to print COE !!!" I guess the rest is just history

Instead of continually raising taxes to discourage vehicle buyers, Singapore sets a quota on the number of vehicles that can be put on the road at any time, and then leaves it to market forces via a fortnightly auction of COEs - certificates of entitlement to buy a vehicle.
Five categories of COEs are available: two for passenger cars, one each for motorcycles and commercial vehicles, and an Open category COE that can be used to buy any vehicle but is mainly used for cars.
Bidding for a COE can be done by motor dealers, or buyers can do it themselves. Nine out of 10 buyers let the motor dealers bid for their COE.
The number of COEs released every fortnight is fixed before the start of a quota year in April. The supply is adjusted in October, if necessary.
From all bids received, the lowest successful bid in a tender is the price everyone in the same category pays.
So if there are 100 COEs available in a category, and bidders make bids from anything between $1 and $50,000, the 100th successful bid from the top becomes the COE price.
Car COEs have ranged from as low as $50 in December 1997 to as high as $110,500 in November 1994. Currently, they hover around $14,000.
This is a history of the scheme:
May 1, 1990: The Government implements the Vehicle Quota or COE System, with the promise of reductions in other car taxes. There were as many as eight categories at first.
Nov 1, 1990: Reduction of the Additional Registration Fee (ARF) for cars, from 175 to 160 per cent of Open Market Value (OMV), or roughly their cost price.
Feb 1, 1991: Further reduction of ARF for cars, from 160 to 150 per cent of OMV
Sept 1, 1991: Car and motorbike COEs are made non-transferable. Commercial vehicle COEs and Open COEs remain transferable.
Feb 20, 1995: Residual value of COE for vehicles registered using Open COEs to be based on COE of the vehicle's rightful category - if it was lower.
Residual value of COE for vehicles deregistered within two years after registration for export is capped at 80 per cent of premium. These are to discourage speculation in Open COEs.
Nov 1, 1995: Introduction of the electronic COE bidding system.
April 1, 1998: ARF for cars reduced further, from 150 to 140 per cent of OMV. Registration fee for cars also reduced from $1,000 to $140.
May 1, 1999: Annual COE supply formula revised. A mid-year adjustment for any huge under or over-supply is also introduced. Also, four car COE categories are merged to become two.
April 1, 2002: Launch of the Open Bidding System, which allows bidders to see the going rate 'live', so they do not bid blindly. Before this, bidders could not see what others were bidding. ARF currently stands at 110 per cent of OMV.
Some of the Source extract from Singapore Land Transport Authority