We refer to Mr Ang Ah Lay's letter, "Iras should account for failure to detect grant fraud" (Jan 18), and thank him for the opportunity to clarify the issue.

Any scheme that supports a broad base of business needs to strike a judicious balance between helping genuine businesses to get grants quickly and conveniently, and comprehensive checks to prevent fraud perpetrated by a minority of applicants. This is what the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) aimed to do in the administration of the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme.

Iras instituted upfront checks and used data analytics to detect and identify risky cases for review. About 20 per cent of the PIC applications had their grants either reduced or rejected due to such checks.

But no upfront checks can uncover all fraudulent applications without being too onerous. The checks are thus complemented by audits and investigations after the fact, including into cases surfaced through whistle-blowers, to recover PIC grants and hold offenders accountable.

As at Dec 31 last year, Iras has prosecuted more than 60 cases of fraudulent PIC claims.

Lim Chit Foo set up multiple shell companies through nominee directors in an elaborate scheme to defraud the Government on the PIC payments. A number of these companies were flagged by Iras' systems as risky for review, and subsequent investigation led to the discovery of all related cases.

Iras is committed to safeguarding public revenue, and regularly reviews our anti-gaming framework to ensure that the risk parameters and checks stay relevant.

We will not hesitate to take legal actions against those who abuse and cheat public funds.

Kelly Wee

Director (Corporate Communications)

Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore