The CEO of Temasek Holdings, Ho Ching, has once again lambasted by netizens over her support towards the former chief executive of CapitaLand, Liew Mun Leong, who was involved in the convictions of his former Indonesian domestic worker, Parti Liyani.
In a Facebook post on 7 August, Madam Ho cited a quote from an American author Zig Ziglar and praised Mr Liew’s belief in “building people”.
“I remember Liew Mun Leong saying the mission of CapitaLand is to build people to build for people. That was why he was chosen to be the founding CEO of CapitaLand,” the Prime Minister’s wife wrote.
Mr Liew had left CapitaLand in 2012 and is currently the Chairman of Changi Airport Group.
However, some netizens criticized Madam Ho’s support towards him, due to his involvements in the unjust convictions of Parti Liyani.
Back in 2016, Mr Liew had accused his helper, Ms Parti, of stealing S$34,000 worth of items from him and his family, two days after abruptly terminating her employment and sent her back to Indonesia.
Ms Parti who had worked for Mr Liew for nine years, denied the allegations and claimed that the items had been discarded by the Liew family and were meant to be recycled or belonged to her. She was sentenced to 26 months’ jail in March 2019 after she was found guilty in a district court.
The sentence was then overturned by Justice Chan Seng Onn on last Friday (4 Sept), who ruled that the district court had failed to consider several points including the credibility of the testimony of Mr Liew’s son, Karl Liew.
Justice Chan finds the convictions against Ms Parti are “unsafe” and thus acquitted her of all the charges, adding that the Liew had an “improper motive” in accusing her of theft back in 2016.
Ms Parti had filed a complaint to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in Oct 2017 against the Liew for forcing her to work illegally at Mr Karl Liew’s home and office.
Justice Chan noted that she had threatened to lodge the complaint to MOM after her employment was abruptly terminated in Oct 2016. He wrote in his judgement, ” I have reason to believe that the Liew family would be very concerned that Parti would carry out her threat to report the matter to MOM.”
Following that, some netizens were quick to criticize Madam Ho’s previous post about Mr Liew, implying that Mr Liew’s belief to “building people” contradicts with his actions.
One netizen wrote that he hopes Madam Ho would be “a better judge of assets than of people”, and asked whether Mr Liew ever considered “helpers to be people” given that Madam Ho had praised him for “building people”.
