Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Let’s Not Have Another ‘Accident’

Last week, Indonesian officials nailed a fugitive who was hiding in Singapore. Indonesian tax department officer Gayus Tambunan was tracked down in Singapore after a week on the run and is now back in Indonesia to face charges of receiving kickbacks in return for producing favorable tax assessments.

Sound like a case of superb cross-country work between Singapore and Indonesia police right? Totally wrong because Singapore got nothing to do with it! Gayus Tambunan was caught on Orchard Road by Indonesian officials working at the Indonesian embassy. According to the story given by the Indonesian authorities, the embassy officials ‘accidentally’ saw Tambunan at a food court along Orchard Road where he was staying at a hotel. He was then ‘convinced’ to voluntarily return to Indonesia to face charges because he was staying in Singapore on an illegal passport.

So in short, we have a fugitive who was
1) allowed to enter Singapore on an illegal passport,
2) allowed to leave Singapore on an illegal passport,
3) so confident he will not be caught, he actually stayed in a hotel on Orchard Road
4) caught by Indonesian officers working in Singapore (not Singapore police, but Indonesian officers)
5) caught by ‘accident’ by Indonesian officers working in Singapore (over 5 million people in Singapore and they managed to find this one person by accident, right…)

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Forget the fact this man is accused of stealing some $3.9 million in Indonesia, that’s Indonesia’s problem, let just say I have some problems with non-appearance of Singapore authorities on the case (and I don’t think I’m alone).

Now Indonesia says that they know of at least 10 other Indonesian fugitives living in Singapore. For the sake of our own ‘face’, I strongly suggest that Singapore be more pro-active in capturing these other fugitives. Let’s not have another ‘accident’.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To the author of hardhitting-nobs.blogspot.com,

Dear Sirs,

I am a student at the university of Amsterdam. At this moment I am in the end phase of my study and have started to conduct research for my thesis to complete my master in political science. In my thesis and related research I aim at analyzing blogs in Singapore that focus on Singaporean politics, including for instance political issues, political system critics etc.

I would be very grateful if you could send me the links of the most authoritative or well known and well regarded blogs writing about Singaporean politics you know next to your own blog. Maybe you have friends who also write on these matters. If you could forward my e-mail to them and ask them to respond to me, that would be great. Alternatively you could send me their e-mail address or url so that I can contact them myself.

I have one more request. Is it possible that you would cooperate with me and that you answer some questions I will send to you in a few weeks? The questions will be about blogging in Singapore.

Thank you very much for your help!

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Nienke van Voorthuisen
S.N.vanVoorthuisen@student.uva.nl

Ghost said...

I'm not sure if I can help you mainly because I don't really blog about political issues. Most of my posts have nothing to do with politics, however if you wish for links to political blogs in Singapore, I would suggest you go to sgbreakingnews.com or singaporedaily.net
They have a lot of links. Hope it'll help and good luck on your thesis.