Workers’ Party MPs Managed to Raise Almost Half a Million for Their Legal Costs in 24 Hours

In case you’ve missed it in all the excitement over the social enterprise-managed hawker centres, the trial brought against Worker Party MP Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh are well underway.

Mr Low Thia Khiang, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Pritam Singh, all opposition MPs from Aljunied GRC, together with two councillors, are being sued by Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council and an independent panel acting on behalf of Aljunied-Hougang Town Council, for alleged improper payments to their own managing agent, FMSS, and other third parties.

If you want to follow that news, you can go to Mothership.SG’s microsite that reports on it regularly in bite-sized style.

But I guess you already know about these, eh, if not you won’t be here.

Now, moving on.

Money Used For The Trials Not From Workers’ Party

Mr Low Thia Khiang, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Pritam Singh said that the money used to pay for the legal expenses so far were from their own pockets and contributions from friends.

They emphasised that the no money was used from the Workers’ Party.

It was added that, so far, the total amount spent by the three of them adds up to about $600,000.

Appealing To The Public For Donations

In a post on their blog, In Good Faith, the trio is appealing to the public for help.

In their post, they emphasised that the claims against them were “unfounded”, and that they’ve acted in “good faith”.

They insisted that the actions taken were all done in the best interest of the residents and the town council.

Now that their resources are drying up, they are appealing for financial support from the public or they will face bankruptcy should they lose the case.

And They Managed To Raise Close To Half A Million Dollars Within 24 Hours

You might be surprised, or you might be not, but the trio managed to raise up close to $500,000 through this appeal.

According to the post, they’ve managed to raise $477, 653. And the amount’s from 2,832 kind individuals who decided to respond.

Do the maths and that’ll be an average of about $169 per individual.

Individuals Posted Screenshots Of Their Donation

A Hardwarezone thread, Support the WP? Show it here (GPGT), was started and members were encouraged to show proof that they’ve donated to the trio.

Chunchunmaru, the person who started the thread, started the ball rolling as well.

$1,000. Wow.

And other forum users started following after.

There are also individuals who claimed to have donated their SG bonus this year to the trio.

WP Clarifies That This Is A Private Undertaking

On 26 Oct, the Workers’ Party issued a statement, saying that they are not appealing for funds on behalf of the trio.

Probably because of stuff like this.

They clarified that it was a “private undertaking” by the three individuals and has nothing to do with the party.

“We understand the three MPs are undertaking a private fundraising effort. The Workers’ Party is not involved in that effort,” it said. 

“We urge members of the public to be extremely wary of donating money to any persons claiming to represent the Workers’ Party.”

They also urged the public not to use WP’s logo or make any claims to represent the party when promoting the private fund-raising.

In other words, the fundraising has nothing to do with the Workers’ Party. So if anyone were to approach you and ask you to donate to WP to help Mr Low, Ms Lim and Mr Pritam Singh, it could be a scam.

Previously, the trio has decided to separate themselves from the Workers’ Party before the trials started. This is so that the party can continue serving Singaporeans and Singapore.

Crowdfunding is indeed powderful.