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SINGAPORE – A Singaporean-born man left for Malaysia at the age of one and continued his education there until he left to study at a UK university.
Basil Lim Boon Hoh failed to meet his National Service Obligations (NS) and failed to pay for a total of nine years, 11 months and 16 days, a court heard on Thursday (October 1).
Lim, 28, admitted to the crime under the Enlistment Act.
The prosecution said Lim was aware of the need for national service, as his father, who is from Singapore, had informed his son before the boy’s 10th birthday. Her mother is Malaysian.
Lim first received a Singapore passport when she was three weeks old. A second passport was issued to her when she was nine years old. By then, Lim had traveled outside of Singapore on her Singapore passport about 10 times. He had also applied for and was issued a Singapore identity card in 2007 as his mother wanted him to have a choice of where to work in the future.
Despite being a citizen of Singapore, Lim did not study in Singapore. He was educated in Malaysia from 1996 to 2009 and then went to London for university. Lim obtained Malaysian citizenship when he was 10 years old.
When Lim was 16 years old, his mother told him that he could ignore his responsibilities to NS as he had Malay citizenship.
By the time Lim was 16.5 years old, the age responsible for national service, he had not obtained a valid exit permit and did not appear for national service registration.
In 2009, several Additional Information Orders were sent to Lim’s birth address and to the addresses in Malaysia that her mother provided. When Lim still did not register with NS, a detention list and a police bulletin were drawn up against her.
In 2016, Lim’s attorney sent representations to the Central Manpower Base (CMPB) requesting a composition of Lim’s crimes and allowing him to renounce his Singapore citizenship.
CMPB rejected the remarks and recommended that Lim return to Singapore to resolve the issue.
Lim responded below on March 19, 2018, emailing CMPB to inform that he will return to Singapore on March 27, 2018. Lim did so and enlisted in the National Service in the Singapore Civil Defense Force on 14 August 2018. He completed his NS on August 13, 2020.
Lim has since said that he wants to keep his Singapore citizenship as he does not speak Malay well and intends to work here instead of Malaysia.
While the prosecution was seeking five months and 18 days in jail for Lim, his lawyer argued for a month.
The lawyer, Lim Kia Tong, said that his client had pleaded guilty to closing the matter which was provoked to some extent by the actions of his mother.
In an email to the lawyer, Lim’s mother stated that she did not know much about NS and that Lim’s father had left the family in 2003. He said that he had changed the postal address to an old one as he did not want his son to see letters about NS. By then, the apartment at that address was already sold.
“I never told Basil anything about this or NS because I wanted him to stay with me and not go back to Singapore,” the mother said in the email.
After finishing university, Lim realized that she had to solve this problem and had several disagreements with her mother before returning to Singapore.
According to the lawyer, Lim was diagnosed with anxiety and depression stemming from his concern about the NS problem.
He has been receiving treatment in Malaysia and then at the Singapore Institute of Mental Health since completing his NS.
Lim is expected to be sentenced on October 15.
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