By Fann
Sim | What’s
buzzing? – 20 hours
ago
While 2012 has been called
a "year of lust", only three sex scandals made it to a list of
the biggest stories for the year.
According to a survey by Blackbox Research, the City
Harvest Church scandal comes out on top.
It may be recalled that CHC founder Kong Hee and other senior
church members were charged in court in June this year for alleged
criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of funds amounting to
some $24 million. The money was allegedly used to fund the singing
career of Kong's wife, Sun Ho.
Coming in second is the Singapore
Civil Defence Force (SCDF) and Central
Narcotics Bureau (CNB) sex and corruption scandals, which
broke out earlier this year.
Former SCDF commissioner Peter Lim in June was slapped with 10
charges of corruption in a sex-for-contracts scandal involving
three women. Lim, who is married, is accused of engaging in
sexual trysts in 10 different occasions in exchange for favouring
the women’s firms in IT-related tenders called by the SCDF.
Former CNB chief Ng Boon Gay was also charged with obtaining sexual
favours - all in the form of oral sex - from Cecilia Sue, a sales
manager of two IT vendors.
Ng claimed trial in July and the hearings started in September. Sue
and Ng both gave gripping, detailed testimony of their encounters
and stirred the interest of many Singaporeans.
At one point, Sue
recounted how Ng forcibly pushed her head down to his
private part and shoved his private part into her mouth while
Ng defended
himself and said, "she was a willing party and we were enjoying
it together."
Third on the list of biggest stories this year is the skyrocketing
of Certificate of Entitlement (COE) prices. COE premiums for all
vehicle types rose to new records this year.
Comparing the first and last bidding exercise in 2012, COE premiums
for all categories have risen between $19 (motorcycles) and $35,000
(small cars).
COE for small
cars hit a new high at $81,889 this month while COE for
big cars hit a new record at $94,502 in August.
Premiums for commercial vehicles hit $63,035 this month. Motorcycle
premiums reached $2,081 in August while COE for $97,000 in
December.
The fourth story that roused the interest of Singaporeans this year
is the affordability of HDB flat prices. This year, prices for HDB
resale prices continued
to soar. A number of flats were sold for more than a million
dollars, the latest being a Shunfu HUDC that went for
a record
price of $1.33 million earlier this month.
Frequent SMRT breakdowns takes the fifth spot in top 10 stories of
2012. The entire year has been plagued by train breakdowns starting
from the major MRT disruption on 15 and 17 December last year.
Yahoo! Singapore did a total of 16 bus and train
breakdown-related stories and many more transport-related stories
this year. From the escalator at Toa Payoh MRT
station catching
fire, to two workers losing
their lives in an MRT construction site and
the major
SMRT bus strike, the capability of our "first class transport"
seems to be called into question.
The graphic provided by Blackbox Research shows the remaining
stories that round out the top 10 list.
Which big story from this year are you the most interested
in? (Image by BlackBox Research)
