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A 25-year-old Chinese national will not have to go to jail after all.
Initially sentenced to four weeks’ jail for providing false information about her educational qualifications while applying for a work pass, Pan Hongling was yesterday handed the maximum $15,000 fine instead.
In allowing her appeal against the jail term handed down by a district judge in May, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong noted that since she never started work here, nobody had been deceived except the system.
In December 2008, Pan paid 1,500 yuan (S$280) to an employment agent for a forged certificate from Dalian University, which stated that she graduated with a degree in accountancy.
Through the agent, an online application was submitted to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to obtain an S Pass for her to work as an assistant accountant in a carbon fibre company.
Pan later signed a form declaring that the particulars of the forged diploma were true, and the pass was issued.
Later, MOM checked with the university and found that the certificate was forged.
Although Pan was issued with the pass, she never worked for the company, Carbon Fibre Specialist, and has been unemployed since she came here in December 2008.
She was charged in July last year with giving false information to MOM, and pleaded guilty in May this year.
Pleading for leniency, Pan said she had paid 70,000 yuan to an agent to come here to work in a factory, but discovered she was the victim of a scam.
Even after her work pass was issued, she was not given work and the agent became uncontactable after she demanded a return of the fees, she said.
Yesterday, in her appeal, she said she did not want to go to jail as that would affect her family in Singapore.
Asked by Chief Justice Chan what she did during the period before she was charged, she said she got by with money brought from China.
Her husband, whom she married in February 2009, supported her financially.
The Chief Justice noted that there was no victim as she never started work, and pointed out that the agent should be investigated.
Deputy public prosecutor Siva Shanmugam told the court that the agent was being investigated.
Chief Justice Chan substituted Pan’s jail term with the maximum fine. If she does not pay, she will have to spend three weeks in jail.
Pan, who did not have a lawyer, tried to bargain for a lower fine, saying her friends in similar situations, who worked in karaoke lounges and massage parlours, were fined $5,000.
But Chief Justice Chan did not grant her request.
