Leon Perera's former driver of 11 years, Frankie Wong, is disputing some of the remarks that the Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh made in the Aug. 2, 2023 Parliament sitting about Perera and Nicole Seah's extramarital affair.
Perera was the Workers' Party (WP) Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) Member of Parliament (MP) whereas Seah was a senior member of the party. Both resigned as they were not frank in their dealings with WP over the affair.
Wong's video disputing Pritam's account was uploaded onto Reddit on Aug. 5 night.
When interviewed by Mothership, Wong, 80, explained that his reason for sharing the video was because he was "very angry" after watching Pritam's account in Parliament and took issue with it.
Wong said Pritam first learnt about affair through a phone call
Wong disagreed with Pritam, who said he learnt about Perera and Seah's affair through WhatsApp.
Wong is disputing this, claiming that he informed Singh about Perera and Seah's affair through a phone call instead.
Singh did not mention in Parliament on Aug. 3 that he learnt about the affair from the driver via WhatsApp.
An excerpt of what Singh said during the Aug. 2, 2023 Parliament sitting:
"We made an assessment of the circumstances in which the driver came forward with the information. There was certain information that I had received after the fact that he had secured the phone numbers of many Workers' Party members and circulated this allegation to many members, a significant number of members across the board."
However, he did mention this point in his Jul. 19, 2023 speech during the WP press conference in response to Perera and Seah's affair.
Here's an excerpt from Singh's press conference speech:
"Sometime around late 2020 and early 2021, I was informed by Leon's driver through WhatsApp that Leon and Nicole were meeting very often at restaurants and hotels, and had been seen hugging each other and holding hands.
There was no evidence or corroboratory evidence to support the allegations. I do not know Leon's driver personally."
Singh did not state if it was a WhatsApp message or a call.
Wong claims he called Singh and did not WhatsApp him
Mothership spoke with Wong and met with him on Aug. 6.
Wong detailed the sequence of events, claiming that the first WP person whom he informed about Perera and Seah's affair was Aljunied GRC MP Gerald Giam, and it was through a phone call.
Wong claimed that Giam told him to report the matter to Singh and gave him Singh's number to do so.
Wong then made a phone call to Singh, where he told the latter about Perera and Seah's affair and asked the latter to help Perera.
Wong alleged that Singh did not say anything besides replying "okay" before he hung up.
Wong clarified that his call with Singh was not via WhatsApp.
He said he does not recall when he called Giam and Singh and he did not have records of his calls with both parties.
Mothership saw Wong's WhatsApp conversation with Singh and note that it only reflects one message that he exchanged with Singh on Apr. 9, 2023.
As per Wong and Singh's statements to the media, the former supposedly informed the latter about Perera and Seah's affair between late 2020 and early 2021.
While Wong said he has not changed his phone since 2020, it is unclear if the conversation reflects the full WhatsApp message history between him and Singh.
Image by Fiona Tan.
Driver not interviewed
Singh confirmed in Parliament on Aug. 3, 2023, that he did not call Wong for an interview regarding Perera's affair with Seah.
He said that there was no corroboratory evidence to work with and there was no other source when he first learnt about the incident.
"If either of these two criteria came into play, then I think something different would have happened. We would have had to look into the matter more carefully, beyond what Mr. Perera had shared with us," Singh said.
Singh also confirmed he didn't reveal the source's identity to Perera but merely showed Perera the information he received.
Perera terminated Wong's services according to his letter to Wong dated Mar. 2, 2021 as seen by Mothership.
Mothership has reached out to WP for comment.
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Top image by Fiona Tan