Tan Choo Leng () is a Singaporean lawyer. The wife of Singapore's second Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, Tan took the role of the spouse of the Prime Minister of Singapore between 1990 and 2004.
Early life and career Tan graduated from the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore) with Bachelor of Laws degree. She is currently an advocate and solicitor for WongPartnership LLP.
Philanthropy Tan has given her support to many charities, and was best known for being a patron of the National Kidney Foundation (NKF)."Patron: It Must", (archived) The New Paper, 14 July 2005"Public anger over charity chief's salary", John Burton, Financial Times, 14 July 2005
Controversy During the 2005 NKF scandal, Tan commented that the annual salary of S$600,000 drawn by NKF's chief executive officer T. T. Durai was considered "peanuts" as compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars managed by the NKF."Patron: It Must", (archived) The New Paper, 14 July 2005"Public anger over charity chief's salary", John Burton, Financial Times, 14 July 2005 Her remark was subsequently met with negative reactions from many Singaporeans.
Blogs and online message boards were quickly flooded with angry comments, and a second online petition requesting Tan to apologise was started. Jokes on the issue were later circulated, in particular, local satirical website TalkingCock.com published a post featuring a parody 1 peanut bill with a value equivalent to S$600,000."New Singapore Dollar Note Unveiled" , Anonymous, TalkingCock.com. Retrieved 23 December 2005
On 16 July 2005, Senior Minister Goh said that Tan regretted the statement. He also said to have explained and shown her several e-mails and letters he had received after the remark was made. In what Goh claimed to be of a separate matter, Tan had also resigned as patron of the NKF,"Ex-NKF patron Mrs Goh Chok Tong regrets remarks about TT Durai's pay: SM Goh" , Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia, 16 July 2005 despite an earlier announcement to remain on the board.
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