Director charged with falsely declaring 12 FTs’ salaries

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Director charged with falsely declaring FTs’ salaries

December 2nd, 2014 | Author: Editorial

2 weeks ago (20 Nov), the director of Blue Diamond Restaurant in Buffalo Road was charged with falsely declaring the salaries of 12 foreign employees.
Abdul Hameed Mohamed Farook, 55, allegedly made false declarations in connection with applications for S-Pass and Employment Pass (EP) for 12 Indian nationals between November 2012 and May this year.
Of the 12, 3 were new applications while the other 9 were renewals.

The 12 Indian nationals were employed as:

• cook
• chef
• manager
• sales manager
• business development manager

Monthly salaries ranging from $2,800 to $4,500 were declared. For S-Pass and EP, the minimum salary needs to be $2,200 and $3,300 respectively.

However, it was found that Mr Hameed paid or intended to pay the 12 Indians much lower salaries than were declared. Based on the false declarations, the applications were approved and work passes were issued.
Providing false salary information to MOM to obtain a work pass is an offence under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act (EFMA). MOM says that offenders will be severely dealt with. If convicted, they can be fined up to $20,000 and/or jailed up to 2 years. They may also be permanently barred from employing foreigners.

However, according to Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving conditions for low-wage migrant workers, 15 employees from Blue Diamond Restaurant had been summoned to MOM where they had their EPs and S-Passes revoked [Link].

TWC2 interviewed 6 of the affected workers and said that 4 of them were on EP with a declared monthly salary of approximately $3,750. The other 2 were on S-Pass with a declared monthly salary of about $2,750. But all of them were paid about $750 a month, in cash.

TWC2 added that Blue Diamond does not look like a high-end restaurant and is unlikely to be able to pay its cooks and servers salaries in the 3- or 4-thousand dollar range.
“Nor did this state of affairs emerge only recently. It had persisted for a long time,” said TWC2.

In fact, 6 of the interviewees told TWC2 that they had worked for Blue Diamond for about 10 years. The others had been employed for between 2 and 7 years.
“That they seemed happy enough in their jobs would indicate that they recognised that their actual salaries — around $750 a month — were more or less equivalent to the going rate for the kind of work they were doing,” TWC2 said.

TWC2 said the crux of the matter is MOM does not permit businesses to hire low-wage service staff on work permit from India.

“We can discern what has happened. The restaurant, desperate for staff but barred from hiring Work Permit-grade service staff from India, resorted to hiring them under the Employment Pass and S Pass categories.” TWC2 explained.

“Doing so meant that the business had to declare salaries in the three or four-thousand dollar range to satisfy the criteria laid down by MOM.”

“Why does MOM not permit businesses to hire low-wage service staff from India? Why must service staff only come from East Asian countries? This strange policy creates unnecessary prosecution, and can also be said to unfairly burden restaurants that serve non-East Asian cuisine.” TWC2 concluded.


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