Two local government ministers said they will take legal action against Bloomberg over a “libellous” story on the purchase of exclusive properties in the city-state, with the news agency reporting the politicians had been involved in transactions.
The story, headlined “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy” looked at top-range houses called Good Class Bungalows and claimed many purchases did not have legal filings, adding that said such deals were harder to track.
It further went on to say that many who buy these mansions use shell companies or trusts.
The Dec 12 story said that interior minister K. Shanmugam had sold one of the homes to UBS Trustees, while manpower minister Tan See Leng had bought one in another part of the city.
However, the two on Monday said they “took a serious view of the allegations”.
“We have taken legal advice and we will be issuing Letters of Demand in relation to that article,” they both said in short and separate Facebook posts.
Bloomberg did not suggest Shanmugam and Tan had done anything wrong in the story, which mentioned alleged transactions involving the two ministers.
The US-based news company declined to comment when contacted by AFP yesterday.
Shanmugam and another politician, foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan, in 2023 were cast in the spotlight for renting huge, expensive bungalows, with some critics alleging they had been given preferential treatment in obtaining rental agreements.
Following an investigation, the government cleared them of any wrongdoing in July last year and said they had not abused their position to rent the houses.
Both of them this year sued former premier Lee Hsien Loong’s estranged brother Lee Hsien Yang for what a judge ruled to be a defamatory Facebook post related to the rentals.
While widely praised for its anti-graft measures, the island state government has long been criticised by the West for being too strict with the media.
The government has sued many international publications for defamation in the past, from The New York Times to The Economist. — AFP
