2 women charged over cheating offences involving $100k in govt support, subsidies for IT firm

SINGAPORE – A former director of a software development and web design company is alleged to have registered “phantom employees” to receive government support and subsidies meant for companies hiring mid-career workers joining a new industry.

Ng Yuen Fei, 40, is said to have committed various offences in 2017 and 2018 related to Workforce Singapore’s (WSG) Professional Conversion Programmes, which has since been renamed Career Conversion Programmes. She was handed eight cheating charges on Feb 14.

Leow Yee Ling, 54, a Singaporean employee at Ng’s company Firstpage Digital Design, had allegedly assisted Ng in creating and submitting false payslips. She was handed two cheating charges on the same day.

In a statement, the police said Ng, a Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident, had registered a total of five purported employees for a Professional Conversion Programme, which provides course fee subsidies to eligible employers, as well as salary support that is computed based on an employee’s monthly salary.

“It is alleged that two of these persons were phantom employees who did not work for the company at all, and that the salaries of the remaining three persons were inflated,” the police added.

Leow was one of the three employees.

Between November 2017 and October 2018, false employment contracts and payslips were allegedly submitted to Supply Chain And Logistics Academy, one of the programme partners appointed by WSG to administer the Professional Conversion Programmes.

As a result, the academy was deceived into disbursing $65,571 as salary support and granting upfront course fee subsidies of $32,284 to Firstpage Digital Design.

Ng is currently out on $80,000 bail, while Leow is out on $15,000 bail. Their next court date is March 7.

For each charge of cheating, they can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

The police said they take a serious view against the abuse of government grants and that offenders will be dealt with severely in accordance with the law.