Remuneration of senior management is pegged to company performance.
Keppel’s senior executives must have collectively been paid additional millions over 13 years as a result of corrupt payments for their “stellar performance”. 😉
According to this Reuters report, the Temasek company had paid “US$55 million in bribes” “to win 13 contracts with Petrobras and Sete Brasil Participacoes SA”.
The report described how the criminal acts went undetected for 13 years:
According to court papers, “the company earned $351.8 million through the bribery scheme“.
Keppel’s senior executives have therefore benefited millions from the additional profit earned through bribery. The relevant authorities should determine – and confiscate – the amount of ill-gotten gains each executive had received.
Senior management executives of a government-linked company should have been exemplary and not facilitated the bribery. They are not rank and file employees earning peanuts.
The most senior executive involved had earned more than S$11 million in 2010 and was the highest paid CEO of public listed companies.
A year before stepping down, former Colombo Plan scholar Choo Chiau Beng was paid $7.98 million.
Confiscating their ill-gotten gains may still be seen as double standard: others have been jailed for smaller amounts involved.
A jail sentence will send a clear message that corruption will not be tolerated.
After all, didn’t Lee Kuan Yew claim that high pay would prevent corruption? Or perhaps he was talking cock.
If the PAP government is accountable to taxpayers, it will need to do the “right thing”. Otherwise, more Singaporeans may lose trust in our legal system.
Agreed. And the fact that they hid it for 13 years means serious hard time. Minimally 10 years of prision and permenant disqualification from any public positions
LKY said that high pay will prevent corruption. The writer has commented: ‘Or perhaps he was talking cock’. NOT perhaps. It is UNDENIABLE AND INDISPUTABLE that LKY is talking cock! Money never enough! Who doesn’t want money? And, if they can make another easy few millions as in this case why won’t the top executives do so??? Particularly, when they think that they will NOT be caught!
The solution: The ill-gotten gains must be returned. And, a jail term to send the clear and unmistakeable message that corruption will land you in prison.