Restaurant boss is 5th to be convicted over 'phantom staff'
By
Esther Tan
Sambnani Anil Pritamdas, 34, who was jailed six months after being convicted on six charges over 'phantom workers', leaving the courts yesterday. He is appealing against the sentence and is out on $30,000 bail. -- ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN
ON PAPER, a River Valley Road restaurant was listed as having 40 Singaporeans on its payroll.
But three of those employees never showed up for work or collected their salaries. Nor were they likely to create trouble - because they were already dead.
On Monday, their boss Sambnani Anil Pritamdas, 34, was jailed six months after being convicted on six charges of making false declarations about the number of Singaporeans hired as well as one of instigating his brother, a silent partner of the restaurant, to make a false declaration. Eight similar charges were considered.
He is appealing against the sentence and is out on $30,000 bail.
The case puts a literal spin to the term 'phantom workers' - Singaporeans listed as being hired so that the employer becomes eligible to employ more foreign workers.
The court heard that between March 2007 and April last year, Pritamdas submitted the particulars of Singaporeans he claimed were employed by his restaurant, Spize - The Makan Place.
Investigations carried out by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) showed that only 19 of the workers he declared were actually employees. The rest had never worked at the restaurant.
To cover his ruse, Pritamdas even put money into the Central Provident Fund (CPF) accounts for all these workers in a bid to back his claim.
The director of MOM's Foreign Manpower Management Division, Mr Aw Kum Cheong, said the ministry was still unearthing suspicious employers; tip-offs were also coming from members of the public.
Under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, inflating one's foreign worker entitlement by falsely declaring the number of local workers can bring a fine of up to $15,000, a jail term of up to a year or both a fine and jail time.
Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of the Straits Times.
