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SINGAPORE: For falsifying expense reduction letters so that his parents could receive the COVID-19 support grant, a 43-year-old man was sentenced to three months in jail on Thursday (September 17).
Court documents showed that Edward Goh, who is unemployed, had forged two dismissal documents for his parents, who are divorced and living apart.
Goh’s mother, Madam Tan Meng Lan, was fired from her kitchen staff position at a meat noodle stand at an ION Orchard food court on May 4.
However, the 67-year-old woman’s employer only verbally informed her of the reduction and began to pay her a full salary, including a contribution to the Central Provident Fund (CPF), during the month of May. The employer would only provide Mdm Tan with an official expense reduction letter in early June.
Upon learning of her downsizing on May 5, Goh decided to help her mother apply for the support grant online, despite knowing that a cost reduction letter or other supporting documents was needed to apply.
Goh then forged an expense reduction letter, pasting a digitally cropped signature of Madame Tan’s former employer, taken from her employment letter, onto a document she had typed.
This was then attached to the online application form, where Goh had indicated his mother’s dismissal date as April 7 and his last salary drawn as S $ 1,907, instead of the actual figure of S $ 1,757.50.
“The MSF (Ministry of Social and Family Development) officials who processed the form were able to determine that the reduction letter was fraudulent and did not pay the CSG to Mdm Tan. If the request had been successful, MSF would have paid $ 2,400 to Mdm Tan ”Said Assistant Prosecutors Nicholas Lim and Jeremy Bin in their statement of fact.
READ: 2 Men Accused of Forging Spending Cut Letters to Obtain COVID-19 Support Grants
READ: COVID-19: Government To Check For Fraudulent Claims For Temporary Aid Funds, Possible Jail Sentence, Says Shanmugam
Meanwhile, Goh’s father, Mr. Goh Keng Thow, had not been fired, but had quit his job as a cook at a noodle stand on March 9.
Goh went to his father’s apartment on May 14 to help him apply for the COVID-19 support scholarship despite knowing that he did not possess the necessary supporting documents.
He forged a letter that was allegedly from his father’s former employer and attached the document to the online application form, stating that the older man had been fired on March 10.
Mr Goh, 68, received the first payment of S $ 800 before MSF could determine that the cost reduction letter was fraudulent and suspended the additional payment, which would have resulted in another S $ 1,600.
In their filing, prosecutors noted that Goh had suggested to his parents that they apply for the grant despite knowing they did not have the necessary documents. Their actions were “premeditated, sophisticated and meticulously planned to avoid detection,” they said.
“The defendant sought to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s response to the pandemic to financially benefit his parents,” they said, noting that the payments were not “‘free money’ to be taken on a whim and whim.”
Therefore, it was necessary for the court to send a “clear message to the public and a deterrent signal to potential offenders” that attempts to deceive the government in this way would face severe punishment, they said.
Goh paid full restitution of S $ 800 on July 22 and pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday.
For committing a forgery with the intention of cheating, Goh could have been jailed for up to 10 years, fined, or both.
