Trainer tricked WDA into disbursing over $27,000, Latest Singapore News - The New Paper
Singapore

Trainer tricked WDA into disbursing over $27,000

This article is more than 12 months old

A man defrauded the former Workforce Development Agency (WDA) into disbursing more than $27,000 in training grants by falsifying records of courses he claimed to have conducted but did not.

Marsh Terranova Tiruchellam, 54, was part of a group of five that had cheated the WDA, now known as SkillsFuture Singapore, into issuing around $73,000 in total.

He was on Friday (April 8) sentenced to 20 weeks' jail after pleading guilty to three counts of falsifying accounts.

Another three similar charges were taken into consideration in his sentencing.

The court heard that Marsh was employed as a trainer at training provider Loyal Reliance between 2013 and March 2015.

Loyal Reliance was approved by the WDA under the Funding for Employer-based Training scheme, which allowed companies to apply for grants to fund training courses for their workers.

The funding scheme sought to encourage firms to upgrade their workers' skills by defraying their costs.

Some time in June 2014, Marsh was asked by Serene Loh Peh Wen, an independent training consultant at Loyalty Reliance, to conduct six courses for manufacturing company Yoke Mah Plasterceil. The courses did not actually take place.

He agreed knowing that it was a ruse to cheat WDA.

Marsh taught his colleagues - Loh, then 47, and training consultant Sebastian Chen Yuren, then 34 - how to prepare the required documents to cover up the fraudulent scheme.

He also signed on attendance records showing that Yoke Mah's employees had attained full attendance and blocked out training dates on his calendar to create a false impression that the courses were real.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Koh Mun Keong said: "Marsh was also involved in the falsifying of assessment forms... (showing) that the employees (of Yoke Mah) had passed the assessments successfully."

After the training dates, Marsh submitted claims to Loyal Reliance for his training fees.

As a result of his offences, WDA disbursed $27,068 for the six courses to Yoke Mah, of which Marsh was paid $7,465.

The ruse came to light when the police's Commercial Affairs Department received a complaint from a WDA senior manager in October 2015, alleging that Yoke Mah and Loyal Reliance had submitted falsified claims to it.

Loh, Chen, Loyal Reliance trainer Patrick Ho Kok Wing, then 56, and Yoke Mah manager Grace Siew Hoong Hua, then 45, were earlier convicted in court for their roles in the scheme of falsifying records for non-existent courses to defraud WDA of $72,903.

They were each sentenced to between 11 weeks and 29 months in jail.

For each count of falsification of accounts, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.

COURT & CRIMEcheatingWDA