They were employees of Hokh Contract Services and Raffles Contractors, demanding to know why their permits had been cancelled, and to get back the money they had paid to their agent when they came to Singapore.

Some of them claimed they had had paid as much as $12,000.

The workers who turned up at MOM were among the 870 workers who had gathered at Kallang Pudding Road, where their agent's office is supposedly located, last Thursday and Friday.

The MOM said it had cancelled the workers permits on April 13, because the employer failed to pay the foreign worker levy and was unable to produce documents as well as their foreign workers.