Court discharges accused

Shaffiq Alkhatib

shaffiq@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

Granting the discharge, District Judge Eddy Tham said there was no improper motive on the part of the prosecution.

Octavius Tok Tien Howe, 37, had been charged earlier this year with robbing managing director Gay Choon Hooi, 46, of S$450,000 on April 14.

Tok had been accused of committing the offence with an alleged accomplice, Neo Ek Khiang, while armed with a knife in a hotel room.

Neo is still at large. Last week, the prosecution had said it could not proceed because of this when it made the application for discharge.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Wong Kok Weng told the district judge yesterday that the hotel room where the alleged crime had taken place was booked under Neo’s name.

Neo left Singapore shortly after Mr Gay purportedly escaped from the room. DPP Wong added that Interpol had been alerted.

Tok’s lawyer, Mr Subhas Anandan, told the court that he only received on Monday the first information report filed about the alleged robbery when he had been trying to get it since May Mr Anandan said he found discrepancies between the report Mr Gay made and the charge Tok faced.

Mr Gay said in his report he had been kidnapped by one person and the report made no mention of any weapons.

However, Tok had been charged with armed robbery and had allegedly committed the offence with an accomplice.

The case will be reviewed on March 28 next year in a district court.

In June, the High Court had ordered Tok to pay his S$619,000 bill at MBS for a 23-day stay there.

It is believed that he had racked up these expenses between March and April just days before the alleged robbery.

Speaking to reporters later about having to pay the hotel bill, Tok said applications will be made to set aside this judgment as it had been made while he was in remand and could not defend himself.— An unemployed man accused of armed robbery at Marina Bay Sands (MBS) was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal by a district court yesterday.

Why import graduates if there is oversupply?

Letter from John Chan Chi Yung

I REFER to the report “Expanding the university sector is not ‘just creating more places’” (Sept 16), on the Ministry of Education’s deliberations as it looks into increasing the university intake.

I am a little confused about the fear that doing so may result in graduates being under-employed or unemployed.

This is especially so when part of the requirement for S-Pass and Employment Pass holders is a university degree or equivalent.

For the Government to allow these degree-holders into Singapore, it implies there is a need for them.

How long has the MOE been concerned about the oversupply of graduates and was this a factor in the pace of increase in places at our local universities until now?

The MOE’s concerns seem at odds with the Government’s lament about the difficulty of finding talent.

How will talents arise if they are deprived of tertiary education?

But if the MOE’s concerns are valid, then too many foreign degree-holders are being allowed in now.

Revisit regulation on HDB resale flats

Letter from Lee Chuan Siang

SINCE last September, a regulation of the Housing & Development Board compels one who owns a private residential property, local or foreign, to sell it within six months of buying an HDB resale flat.

An adjunct to it disallows one from buying private property if one has owned an HDB resale flat for less than five years.

Enforcement is easy in the case of Singaporeans, as property ownership here can be verified through local data.

What of permanent residents from countries where property records are not centralised or inaccessible by a foreign authority?

This disparity in enforcement efficacy is unfair to Singaporeans.

6.5m people, more or less?

Letter from Ng Ya Ken

THE Government has yet to announce any official population projection for the next few decades, although it has been using a 6.5 million population parameter for physical planning for the next 30 to 40 years. It has repeatedly said that the 6.5 million figure is not a target.

In contrast, Hong Kong’s Census and Statistical Office frequently updates its population forecast, with the latest one made in July last year, showing that its 7 million population in 2009 would expand to 8.89 million by 2039.

Why does Hong Kong — with a fertility rate lower than ours — want to tell the world that its population will expand by 27 per cent over the next 30 years?

One of the purposes is to convince the world that it has an expanding workforce to meet the need of economic growth for the next three decades — as a tool for boosting business confidence and attracting foreign investments in a territory where local the population is declining.

It also shows that the Hong Kong authorities are not avoiding the hard questions on immigration issues, since future population growth will have to rely solely on immigration. It also serves as a reminder to the locals to face up to the unavoidable reality of having to work and live with more immigrants in future years.

The Hong Kong release, which shows forecasts at five-year intervals till 2039, can be used for not only urban planning but also for planning in education, health and other social services.

Businesses can also use it to plan their investments, especially those that depend on the mass market or take longer to fully reap the profits.

Should we not do the same as Hong Kong, so that a common population forecast and its accompanying assumptions can be used for planning purposes among the various ministries in the Government?

In projecting long-term population figures, we are forced to take a harder look at factors and possible scenarios affecting not only population growth but also economic growth and other aspects of our future.

Population projection can be a very profound, deep-thinking and forward-looking process, from which we as a nation can learn many valuable things.

The Government should not be unduly concerned about how the people will react to the projection as long as it is conducted with the nation’s best interests being placed as the ultimate goal.

We should, like Hong Kong, have an official population projection