Three firms in Singapore as well as four individuals who were their former directors, were convicted last week of multiple offences under the country’s Employment of Foreign Manpower Act and the Employment Act.

The companies convicted include Mini Environment Service, Labourtel Management Corporation, and MES Logistics.

From 2009 to 2019, the three companies submitted 111 false salary declarations in respect of Work Permit and S Pass applications or renewals to the Ministry. Since the offences were surfaced, the companies and the four individuals have been barred from employing migrant workers.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) fined Mini Environment Service SGD 396,500 (USD 292,895) while it fined Labourtel SGD 120,000 (USD 88,644), and MES Logistics SGD 59,000 (USD 43,579).

Director of Labourtel Haja Nawaz and director of MES Logistics and Mini Environment Service Chew Chain Loo carried out the submission of work pass applications and renewals for the three companies.

The other two directors, Mohamed Jinna and Parvis Ahamed (both of them directors of Mini Environment Service, Labourtel and MES Logistics), told Nawaz and Loo to inflate the monthly salaries of various foreign employees, which were determined based on the prevailing requirements for a Work Permit or S Pass to be issued.

The employees’ declared salaries were credited into their bank accounts. Thereafter, the employees were told to return the difference between their declared monthly salaries and their actual salaries in cash to Nawaz and Loo. This enabled the companies to hire more foreign employees than they would otherwise have qualified for.

For Mini Environment Service, the company submitted 18 false employment declarations to the Ministry from 2015 to 2019. Under Ahamed and Jinna’s directions, Nawaz and Loo declared Mini Environment Service to be the official employer of the foreign employees named in the declarations.

These foreign employees were, however, illegally deployed to work at MES Logistics or Labourtel, without valid work passes and undertook different job scopes than what was declared. This allowed the companies to circumvent the work pass quotas that were imposed on each of them.

From March to April 2019, Mini Environment Service also made its employees work overtime beyond the permitted limit of 72 hours per month as stipulated under the Employment Act.

Loon was imprisoned for four months, Nawaz was imprisoned for four months and two weeks. Meanwhile, Ahamed was given 35 weeks’ imprisonment and an SGD 42,500 (USD 31,391) fine (in default 170 days’ imprisonment). Jinna was also given 42 weeks’ imprisonment and an SGD 48,000 (USD 3,454) fine (in default 192 days’ imprisonment).

Adrian Quek, divisional director of the Foreign Manpower Management Division, Ministry of Manpower, said, “This is the largest and most extensive case of false declaration contraventions investigated by MOM to date. The MES Group had failed to protect its employees' well-being by illegally deploying them and subjecting them to overtime work beyond the legal limit. Furthermore, the group had egregiously circumvented our work pass controls, gaining an unfair commercial advantage over other companies. MOM will continue to take firm action against companies that contravene our laws.”