Civil servants buying properties close to planned MRT stations: Government assessing whether there was misconduct

The Government is currently reviewing if there was actual misconduct in cases highlighted in a study on civil servants buying properties close to future MRT stations, the Public Service Division (PSD) of the Prime Minister's Office said on Friday (Sept 25).

The study, a working paper under the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) circulated in September, had reported a statistical association between civil servants and the homes they purchased near planned MRT stations prior to public announcements regarding the stations.

It looked at cases from 2007 to 2011, and determined proximity to be within a 1km radius from future MRT stations within the period.

Stressing that PSD takes the paper's assertions seriously, it said that the patterns reported are concerning.

"But statistical patterns do not by themselves establish whether any individual officer actually had access to non-public information on MRT station locations at the relevant time, or whether such information influenced a property purchase," PSD said.

Therefore, the Government is looking into the possibility of actual misconduct by identifying property purchases between the period specified in the paper.

They will then compare this with information of officers who were involved in rail planning at the time, as well as the proximity of their purchases to the relevant MRT station.

"As these transactions took place some time ago, we will need time to retrieve the available records and examine the circumstances of each case," PSD stated.

"If we find evidence that an officer used non-public information to make a property purchase for personal benefit, the case will be referred to the police for further investigation."

AsiaOne understands that the NBER paper utilises fuzzy matching to determine if a civil servant has purchased a property near a future MRT station.

In this instance, fuzzy matching compares names that appear in the Singapore Government Directory with names that appear in the Registry of Land Titles and identifies if there could be an approximate match.

The Government — with access to personally identifiable data — is able to establish exact matches using its administrative data and will look into this to identify if there are actual instances of misconduct.

PSD also assured that if there are grounds to suspect misconduct by civil servants in misusing non-public informaton for personal benefit, the matter will be investigated and appropriate action taken.

khooyihang@asiaone.com

总理公署公共服务署（PSD）周五（9月25日）表示，政府目前正在审查一项关于公务员购买靠近未来地铁站的房产的研究报告中指出的案例中是否存在实际的不当行为。

这项研究是美国国家经济研究局 (NBER) 于 9 月份发布的一份工作报告，报告指出，公务员在地铁站正式公布之前，在规划中的地铁站附近购买房屋与公务员之间存在统计关联。

它调查了 2007 年至 2011 年的案例，并将邻近区域确定为该时期内未来地铁站方圆 1 公里以内。

PSD强调，他们非常重视该论文中的说法，并表示所报道的模式令人担忧。

“但统计模式本身并不能确定任何一名警员在相关时期是否实际接触过有关地铁站位置的非公开信息，也不能确定此类信息是否影响了房产购买，”公共服务署表示。

因此，政府正在调查是否存在实际不当行为，方法是查明该文件所列期间的房产购买情况。

然后，他们会将这些信息与当时参与铁路规划的官员提供的信息，以及他们购买商品与相关地铁站的距离进行比较。

“由于这些交易发生在一段时间以前，我们需要时间来检索现有记录并审查每个案件的情况，”公共服务司表示。

“如果我们发现有证据表明警员利用非公开信息购买房产以谋取私利，该案件将移交警方进行进一步调查。”

AsiaOne了解到，NBER的这篇论文利用模糊匹配来确定公务员是否在未来的地铁站附近购买了房产。

在这种情况下，模糊匹配会将新加坡政府名录中出现的姓名与土地所有权登记册中出现的姓名进行比较，并确定是否存在近似匹配。

政府拥有个人身份识别数据，能够利用其行政数据进行精确匹配，并将对此进行调查，以确定是否存在实际的不当行为。

公共服务署也保证，如有理由怀疑公务员滥用非公开信息谋取私利，将会对此事进行调查并采取适当行动。

khooyihang@asiaone.com