Company director charged for false declaration of salaries

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has charged a Singaporean company director with falsely declaring the salaries of 20 Employment Pass (EP) holders.

Singaravelu Murugan, director of computer firm MN Computer Systems Pte Ltd, was charged in the State Courts last week for the false declarations given to the Controller of Work Passes.

It is alleged he made false declarations between 5 July 2012 and 6 September 2013 in 17 application forms for EPs, the MOM said in a statement.

Murugan is accused of declaring he would pay $4,500 per month to each of his 20 foreign employees - employed as software engineers - but actually intended to pay them less than what he had stated. This is an offence under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.

MOM also investigated the employees themselves to see if they were involved with the false declarations, however it was found all of them were unaware a higher salary had been declared. All have since stopped working for MN Computer Systems.

This case is the third major case involving employers making false salary declarations, for which MOM has prosecuted.

[READ MORE: Eight bosses and two agents fined for falsely declaring salaries]

These prosecutions are part of MOM's continual efforts to enforce against deliberate circumvention of the work pass framework, it said in a statement.

It is currently investigating other similar false declarations involving 254 foreigners hired by 78 different employers in Singapore.

"All work pass applicants must make accurate, complete and truthful declarations to the Controller of Work Passes," said MOM.

"Making a false declaration to the Controller through the fraudulent submission of salary information to circumvent work pass eligibility criteria is a deliberate attempt to deceive MOM."

Offenders, if found guilty, can be fined up to $20,000 and/or imprisoned for up to two years per charge.