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ail for woman over ruse that duped academy into disbursing nearly $18k in public funds
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Leow Yee Ling was sentenced to four months’ jail after she pleaded guilty to a cheating charge.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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Singapore courtsPublished Sep 24, 2025, 02:25 PM
Updated Sep 24, 2025, 04:55 PM
SINGAPORE – A design firm’s part-time employee submitted falsified payslips to an academy that Workforce Singapore (WSG) had appointed as a programme manager for a government-linked initiative.
Leow Yee Ling, 55, who was then working in administrative support for Firstpage Digital Design, was supporting the scheme of her then boss to cheat the Supply Chain and Logistics Academy (Scala) of salary support grants, the prosecution said.
Leow committed the offences from April to October 2018 and Scala was duped into disbursing nearly $18,000 in public funds.
On Sept 24, the Singaporean, who has since made more than $17,900 in restitution, was sentenced to four months’ jail after she pleaded guilty to a cheating charge.
Though Leow was not the mastermind of the scheme, she had played an integral role in its execution, Deputy Public Prosecutor Louis Ngia told the court.
The case involving Malaysian Ng Yuen Fei, 41, who was Leow’s boss and a director at Firstpage at the time of the offences, is pending.
DPP Ngia said the mission of WSG – a statutory board under the Ministry of Manpower – is to enable Singaporeans to access good job opportunities and build their careers at every stage of their lives.
He added that WSG funded an initiative known as the Professional Conversion Programme (PCP), aimed at helping mid-career job seekers, such as professionals, managers, executives and technicians, to reskill to join a new industry.
Scala was in charge of administering PCP’s logistics for WSG, the court heard.
The academy’s roles included administering applications in the PCP, and disbursing WSG’s public funds to participating employers.
DPP Ngia told the court that companies could enrol their newly hired employees for the logistics industry for PCP to train them. However, only full-time employees undergoing skills conversion to move into the logistics sector were eligible for the logistics PCP.
Participating employers had to send enrolled staff for Scala’s logistics course and provide on-the-job training for them. WSG’s funds were then used to support the employers’ re-training of their enrolled staff.
DPP Ngia said that in late 2017, Ng, who is also known as Andrea, learnt about the PCP and hatched a plan to cheat Scala.
He added: “She enrolled employees in the PCP and falsely inflated their salaries, so that Firstpage would get a higher salary support grant sum than it ought to receive under the PCP.
“Andrea also recruited individuals as ‘employees’ with Firstpage for the purpose of enrolling them in the PCP. These were not genuine employees as they did not do any work for Firstpage.”
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The prosecutor said such “employees” were not paid the salaries stated in their employment contract. Their only role in Firstpage was to go for the PCP training course that Scala administered, DPP Ngia added.
Court documents stated that Ng hired Leow in December 2017. The two women agreed that Leow would work part-time and be paid $13 an hour.
Leow also agreed to Ng’s plan to enrol her with Scala for the logistics PCP, court documents stated.
DPP Ngia said that as part of Leow’s PCP application in January 2018, Ng submitted to Scala a purported employment contract, falsely stating that the older woman was a full-time employee earning $4,000 a month.
Leow, who was initially unaware about the false employment contract, was successfully enrolled in the PCP and went through a Scala training course.
The prosecutor said Leow later found out from another director at Firstpage that Ng had informed Scala that her pay was purportedly $4,000 a month. The director then advised her to “be careful”.
Despite the warning, Leow later followed Ng’s instructions and submitted false payslips to Scala, said DPP Ngia.
He added that Leow, under Ng’s instructions, also falsely filled in training dates and details in her on-the-job training logbook when she did not undergo any such activities.
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After that, Leow submitted the logbook to Scala to support her fraudulent salary support grant application.
Separately, she prepared false supporting documents for the grant by using the names of other individuals who were not genuine employees of Firstpage.
Leow also filled on-the-job training logbooks that purportedly belonged to these “employees”. She then submitted the fake payslips and false details in the logbooks to Scala.
For cheating, an offender can be jailed for up to three years and fined.
