SINGAPORE - The director of popular Indian eating house Blue Diamond Restaurant has been charged by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) with providing false salary information.

Between November 2012 and May this year, Abdul Hameed Mohamed Farook made three new and nine renewal work pass applications for 12 employees from India.

On the application forms, the 55-year-old had declared that he would pay these employees monthly salaries of between $2,800 and $4,500. The applications were approved based on these salaries.

However, he actually intended to pay these workers salaries lower than what had been declared, said the MOM in a statement on Thursday.

In the first 10 months of this year, four employers have been convicted of falsely declaring the salaries of foreign employees. Another 15 have been found guilty of the same offence in the past two years.

They can be fined up to $20,000, imprisoned up to two years, or both. They may also be permanently barred from hiring foreigners.