Two women to be charged over creating false payslips to get government subsidies, salary support
File photo of the State Courts of Singapore. (File photo: CNA/Jeremy Long)
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SINGAPORE: Two women will be charged on Friday (Feb 14) over the creation of false payslips to get salary support and course fee subsidies under Workforce Singapore's Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs).
The police said in a news release on Thursday that a 40-year-old woman, the director of a software development and web design company, had registered five purported employees for the PCP.
It is alleged that two of them were “phantom employees” who did not work for the company and that the salaries of the remaining three were inflated.
PCPs, which were renamed Career Conversion Programmes in 2021, help mid-career professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) undergo skills conversion and move into new occupations or sectors.
The programme provides salary support and course fee subsidies to eligible employers who hire them. The salary support is computed based on the employee’s monthly pay.
Between November 2017 and October 2018, false employment contracts and payslips of the five people were allegedly submitted to the Supply Chain and Logistics Academy (SCALA) – a programme partner appointed by WSG – for the PCP.
A 54-year-old woman, who was one of the employees registered for the PCP, allegedly assisted the director in creating the false payslips and submitting them to SCALA on behalf of the company.
As a result, SCALA disbursed S$65,571 (US$48,600) in salary support and granted upfront course fee subsidies of S$32,284 to the company.
The offence of cheating carries a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine.
"The police take a serious view against the abuse of government grants and offenders will be dealt with severely in accordance with the law," said the Singapore Police Force.
