His little stunt may fly (and may be expected?) in his home country, but one Malaysian man quickly learnt the error of his ways when he tried to bribe a Traffic Police officer here.
The thing is, Sang Jia Wen tried to grease the cop’s palm with… SGD30. Granted, it’s worth more by Malaysian standards (about RM92.84 as of writing), but, er, it’s not exactly a lavish, bountiful amount to buy off a Singaporean officer of the law.
Anyway, the price didn’t really matter — Staff Sergeant Zulkifli Bin Dzahari and his fellow Traffic Police officers wouldn’t have accepted bribes of any amount at all, given the strapping anti-corruption fortitude here.
TODAY reports that the 30-year-old Malaysian construction worker was caught by SSGT Zulkifli on Jan 11 for not strapping on his helmet securely while riding his motorcycle. Really, Sang could have been let off with a stern warning if that was his first offence — or at most, perhaps a fine.
But he done goofed it up when he stuffed three SGD10 notes into the cop’s trouser pocket and asked him not to issue a traffic summons. Whoops.
Sang was arrested immediately and charged in court last month for corruptly offering gratification. Today, he was sentenced to four weeks’ jail — a lucky break, considering he could have served up to five years in prison and/or fined the maximum amount of SGD100,000.
