Singapore is well regulated with many rules governing every facet of a business operation. These rules are important. Period.

Small and medium enterprises (SME) in Singapore generally are resource stricken. Most SME do not have well written protocols and processes in place to ensure full compliance of every known and unknown law. Unlike government agencies where there are vast amount of resources available, SME owners are often stretched trying to play catch-up complying with the many different laws from every regulator. Sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail.

This petition is about bringing fairness to the SME owners. It is about those laws that punish us, unfairly.

My blush with the law concerns the Motor Vehicles (Third-Party Risks and Compensation) Act. When an employee failed to get a company vehicle insured and the vehicle is being used without the employer's knowledge, the company director will face a criminal charge. The minimum punishment is disqualification of the driving licence for 12 months, fine, or a jail sentence. The prosecutor in this case is the Land Transport Authority, LTA. 

A judge from the State Courts mentioned that an administrative oversight (term used by the judge) like this should not be an excuse for the business owner. Yes agree. But instead of imposing a fine to the company which owned the vehicle, the law is drafted that THE managing director be charged criminally. This, like the many other laws that we have, are written to get the head chopped.

I write this petition not to exonerate myself or any business owner who has been negligent. By all means, the punishment should be meted out but making it a criminal offence for an 'administrative oversight'? 

Each year, we learn about the many lapses and/or failures within the Civil Service. Some of these involve loss/waste of public funds, bad procurement procedures, police enforcement, data breaches and until recently; wrong jail term.

How is it that none of these honchos is punished individually? None of them had to face any criminal charges as a person. Why is there a double standard? Is this simply because government officers are deemed public servants and by this virtue of serving they need not face prosecution? 

Please support my petition to have the law changed. Stop criminalising business owners when things go wrong. There company is an entity itself and some of the laws should stop at the company level. Level the playing field.