GD Group Pte Ltd, a notable food and beverage company, was charged with work pass application fraud on 27th December 2018, and fined $94,500. The Ministry of Manpower has also banned the company from hiring foreign employees. The company was charged with a total of 20 charges and convicted for seven of those charges.

GD Group Pte Ltd was convicted of falsifying salary declarations on Employment Passes for its foreign employees. According to court documents, the company made these false declarations between February 2013 and July 2015.

Investigators revealed that the company made false declarations for 20 of its foreign employees. It misled the authorities that those employees were paid salary amounts between $4,000 and $4,800 while the actual salary amounts ranged between $1,500 and $2,200. The company did this to get approval for more employment passes, thus circumventing the set foreign employee quota rules and benefiting from more cheap labour.

Mr Kandhavel Periyasamy, the Director of Employment Inspectorate with the Ministry of Manpower’s Foreign Manpower Management Division, issued a stern warning to other local employers when commenting on the case. He promised that his department would step up efforts to catch other employers who break the rules.

Companies that will break the rules will be liable to prosecution and fines of up to $20,000 for each charge brought up against them. Directors of these companies may also be jailed for up to two years under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act. All employers are urged to be truthful and transparent when making their declarations to the Controller of Work Passes.

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