Satish Cheney
inSing.com - 17 hrs 46 mins ago
Sembawang GRC MP Vikram Nair says he hasn't ruled out taking
legal action against socio-political website, The Online Citizen
(TOC), regarding a potentially libellous article about him.
Referring to the article, written by Ng Ee-Jay and titled
"Vikram Nair compares Chen Show Mao's proposals to a Nigerian
scam," the MP said, "It is extremely deceptive of TOC to attribute
lies to me."
He said the article suggested that he considered investing in
the elderly, the disabled, the poor and other needy Singaporeans as
being "akin to a Nigerian scam."
Writing on his Facebook page, he stressed that, "the insinuation
that I do not care about these groups is totally false."
He told inSing News, "I don't have any legal plans now. I hope
not to take legal action but if there's lingering damage I might
have to consider it. It also depends on what they (The Online
Citizen) do and how they respond to the matter. I just want to
clear my name."
He added that his final decision will also depend if the website
takes down the article and apologises.
But he stressed that he hopes no legal action will be
required.
The MP also took issue with the quote that appeared beside his
photo in the article, which read, "Investing in People = Nigerian
Scam".
He said that his joke about the Nigerian scam was taken out of
context when he was responding to the Workers' Party's Chen Show
Mao's views on investments in social capital.
Chen had said that it was vital to invest in social capital and
according to Nair, Chen had suggested that there is no need to make
provisions for social capital investments in the Budget.
Responding to the Aljunied GRC MP in Parliament, Nair had said,
"Maybe even the Nigerian scheme required you to put $10,000
upfront. But Mr Chen's scheme does not even require a short-term
provision. It is not even a deficit for one year. No, no, no. It
will pay for itself because it is an investment. So I would like
him to explain how he expects these schemes to pay for themselves
because, if they do, I will wholeheartedly support it."
The PAP MP reiterated he did not state that the notion of
investing in vulnerable groups is akin to investing in a Nigerian
scam.
He added, "I pointed out that the investment concept Mr Chen
proposed did not appear to be properly thought through because he
did not explain how it was going to be paid for. I fully support
the helping of vulnerable groups. In fact, I specifically said I
agreed that we should invest in social capital. And that is what is
being done now. But we should be clear as to how we are going to
pay for it and not pretend that the money will materialise from
nowhere."
When approached by inSing news, TOC said that the article was by
a contributor and the views are of the contributor.
"It was not a TOC editorial, and hence does not reflect TOC's
editorial or organisational position. Therefore, TOC does not see
the need to reply to Mr Nair's Facebook note."
The site added that they had not been contacted by Nair and that
they do not have plans at the moment to take down the article in
question.
