“Is Ho Ching considered a public official?” Lim Tean questions POFMA order to share article on Temasek CEO salary

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Singapore: Opposition lawyer and leader Lim Tean questioned the Correction Directorate he received on Sunday (April 19) from the POFMA office about an article by The Online Citizen (TOC) about the CEO salary of Temasek Holdings Ho Ching, which Lim had shared in April. fifteen.

The order had been issued by Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat to HardwareZone user “darksiedluv”, The Temasek Review Facebook page, Facebook page and The Online Citizen website, as well as Mr. Lim.

The Singapore Online Tamper Protection and Misrepresentation Act (POFMA) was passed last year to combat the spread of online misrepresentations.

Article on the TOC site that Lim had shared claimed that Madame Ho was receiving a salary of “NT $ 2.1 billion”, “approximately SGD 100 million” or “S $ 99 million a year”, which the government denounced as false.

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In a clarification on the matter posted on the Factually website, it was stated that the Government does not set the remuneration of the staff in Temasek. Rather, it is the Board and management who do it. Furthermore, the clarification on the Factually site says, “Temasek has also publicly stated that Ms. Ho Ching’s annual compensation is not the highest within Temasek, nor is it among the top five highest-paid executives in Temasek.”

In response to this, Lim questioned the basis for the correction order in a Facebook post on Sunday night. He quoted the Minister of National Development, Lawrence Wong, saying in Parliament that the Government does not interfere with the management of Temasek.

Therefore, he wrote: “And on what basis of public interest are the ‘New Taxes’? Heng now OFFERS ME FOR Ho Ching’s salary, since Temasek is supposed to be a ‘private exempt’ company. So the Does the government have the right to issue POFMA over the business of a “private” company? Is Ho Ching considered a public official or part of the government that the government deems necessary to issue a POFMA?

Mr. Lim also questioned why a “supposedly” exempt private company “that owns” money belonging to the People of Singapore “should be protected by the Government and is exempt from public disclosure of “Its management to stakeholders: the people of Singapore”.

And then he also wondered if netizens who had also shared the post also received a POFMA correction address, or if he and TOC alone had received a notice from the POFMA office. Mr. Lim’s post has been shared more than 400 times.

The opposition lawyer also questioned whether the Taiwanese media outlet, which was the source of the TOC article, also received a correction. “And if not, why not?” He wrote.

For its part, TOC wrote in a Facebook post Sunday night that it had submitted a request to cancel the correction order that same night.

TOC added: “In the event that the Minister denies the request, we will file a request with the Superior Court to challenge the direction of correction.

The correction notice referenced social media posts on Facebook and the HardwareZone Forum, but did not identify the Taiwan news outlet that made the initial claim as the source of the alleged false claim. ”

– / TISG

Also read: POFMA correction instructions issued to Lim Tean and two other people for falsehoods

POFMA correction instructions issued to Lim Tean and two other people for falsehoods

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