Company director fined $24k for employing illegal workers
A company director who employed 11 foreigners as wash line workers without valid work passes was fined $24,000.
The foreigners worked at Sats Inflight Catering Centre 2 for up to three months before it was discovered that they were illegally employed.
On Jan 23, Fazli Hisham Mohd Fairuz Shah, 35, the director of warehousing and cleaning services firm DPRO Logistics, admitted to four offences under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.
Seven other similar charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing.
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) prosecutor Goh Xuan Ying told the court that foreign workers without work passes are not protected, citing the lack of insurance as an example.
Mr Goh added that abuse of such workers is not easily detectable.
The prosecutor wrote in court documents: “A strong deterrent signal needs to be sent to employers and their officers... who illegally employ foreigners for their own gain.”
The court heard that in January 2022, Sat Catering published a tender for wash line general workers at the catering centre.
Logistics services company SXW submitted a quotation for the tender but realised it did not have the manpower to provide full-time local workers.
SXW’s business development manager, Mr Justin Choo Han Wei, approached Fazli to subcontract manpower on a temporary basis.
DPRO Logistics eventually entered into an agreement with another company in which Mr Choo was a director, as SXW could not financially support the project.
Mr Choo then told Sats Catering that SXW would be able to supply enough manpower, and its quotation was accepted.
Fazli instructed his operations manager to recruit workers, but the latter could not find enough local workers for the job.
Fazli then contacted an acquaintance of his, Indian national More Sai Kiran, knowing that he would recruit foreign students to work for the firm.
Mr Kiran recruited the foreigners, who were then assigned tasks in the catering centre, such as doing quality checks on cutlery and operating dishwashers.
Court documents listed the working arrangements of four of the 11 workers.
They worked 12-hour shifts for between three and seven days a week, and were paid between $90 and $100 for each day of work.
On April 5, 2022, MOM investigating officers, acting on a tip-off, inspected the catering centre.
Seeking a total fine of $26,000, Mr Goh noted that Fazli had broken the law for commercial and financial gain.
“DPRO (Logistics) was able to employ such workers without incurring the costs of obtaining work passes for foreign workers or hiring local workers, who would likely have been paid higher wages,” wrote Mr Goh.
Business records show that DPRO Logistics is currently in liquidation.
Those convicted of employing a foreign employee without a work pass can be fined between $5,000 and $30,000, jailed for up to a year, or both.
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