MFA official charged with baking up claims for tarts

[SINGAPORE] The former chief of protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Lim Cheng Hoe, has been charged in court on 60 counts of cheating the ministry of almost $90,000 by falsifying his claim forms.

Unlike other recent criminal cases involving scandalous conduct by senior government officials, however, these charges feature wine and pineapple tarts.

Lim, 60, allegedly inflated claims he made on thousands of boxes of pineapple tarts supposedly bought for official ministerial trips. For example, he would claim for 250 boxes of pineapple tarts when, in actual fact, none were used for the trip, or he would make a claim for 200 boxes when only 50 were used.