The Police will be charging two women, aged 40 and 54, on 14 February 2025 for their suspected involvement in cheating offences in relation to Workforce Singapore’s (“WSG”) Professional Conversion Programmes (“PCPs”).
PCPs [1] help mid-career professionals, managers, executives and technicians undergo skills conversion and move into new occupations or sectors with opportunities for progression. The programme provides salary support and course fee subsidies to eligible employers taking on mid-career new hires. The salary support is computed based on the employee’s monthly salary. Supply Chain and Logistics Academy Pte Ltd (“SCALA”) is one of programme partners appointed by WSG to administer the PCPs.
The 40-year-old woman, a director of a software development and web design company, had registered a total of five purported employees for the PCP. 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. Between November 2017 and October 2018, false employment contracts and payslips of the five were allegedly submitted to SCALA for the purposes of the PCP. The 54-year-old woman was one of the employees registered for the PCP, and had allegedly assisted the 40-year-old director in creating the false payslips of the employees and submitting them to SCALA on behalf of the company. As a result, SCALA disbursed a total of $65,571 as salary support and granted upfront course fee subsidies of $32,284 to the company.
The offence of cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code carries an imprisonment 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.
[1]: Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) were renamed to Career Conversion Programmes (CCPs) in 2021.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
13 February 2025 @ 3:05 PM