UN bribery scandal leads to global forum cancelation

Ng Lap Seng

The impact of the United Nations bribery scandal involving Macau developer Ng Lap Seng can again be felt in the MSAR, as the global organization announced its intention to cancel planned events and offices in the city.
The UN’s World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty, a network of around 900 municipal governments, had planned to hold its next “Global Forum” in the territory. However, according to a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for South-
South Cooperation, the next Global Forum will no longer be held in Macau as planned.
The cancelation of this event is seen as a blow to officials in the MSAR, who are keen to promote the meetings and conferencing industry as a part of the diversification of the economy. According to government figures, the city hosted 23 meetings, each involving some 200 people, in the April–June quarter, while the previous World Alliance of Cities Against Poverty forum, held in Dublin in 2013, attracted more than 500 delegates.
The news comes in addition to the setback in discussions over the proposal to build an expo center in the SAR, which was halted after Ng’s arrest in September. Some 200 delegates had hitherto endorsed the building of the center during a meeting on August 25 and 26 at the Grand Hyatt Macau.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review, the official added that another plan discussed at the August meeting in Macau, to shift part of the office’s secretariat to the city, also “will not be pursued.”
The South-South office has said that it would not be accepting the USD13.5 million in funding offered by Ng’s Sun Kiap Ip Group Foundation, and is mounting multiple reviews of its ties to the group. This follows the arrests of Ng Lap Seng and John Ashe, the former president of the United Nations General Assembly.
However the office reported that it has already spent USD1.5 million of donations from the foundation to finance the August meeting in Macau and another held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in May.
Ng has been charged by prosecutors in New York on allegations of bribery and money laundering, amounting to an alleged USD500,000 paid to John Ashe. It is alleged that the money was used to enlist Ashe in Ng’s bid for the construction of a “multi-billion dollar” U.N South-South expo center.
One of Ng Lap Seng’s defense lawyers, Benjamin Brafman, has said that Ng “wants to clear his name” to protect his real estate empire, which would “crumble in an hour” if banks demanded payments of loans after a conviction. That, Brafman added, would cause Ng to “lose everything.”
However, Ng’s business partner, Kuan Via Lam, said in October that the Sun Kiap Ip Group Foundation would be unaffected by the case and detention of the Macau developer because Ng’s son is the company’s board chairman, and the elder Ng “has not directly participated in the company’s operations for the past few years.”
In a separate case, Ng was arrested last month after being accused of bringing USD4.5 million into the U.S. and deceiving the authorities as to its purpose.
Ng and Ashe have pled not guilty to all charges and have been released on bail. Staff reporter