Bogus degrees

WHEN he applied for an employment pass in 2005 to work here, Nattuveettil Velayudhan Vinodkumar reckoned he could ramp up his chances.

So he took his wife's degree, dabbed whitener over her name and inked in his own.

With his newly minted 'degree', the 40-year-old Indian national, a non-graduate, applied for and landed a general manager's job at a firm called Cardium Nuts. He was paid a tidy $2,600 a month.

But he was caught eight months later.

His was not an isolated case. There has been a rise in the number of such foreign talent that isn't.

Vinodkumar, who was jailed for two months before being repatriated, was one of 374 people found with fraudulently obtained employment passes (EP) and S-Passes last year.

This is a jump of almost four times the 97 cases in 2005, though the number is still small compared to the 110,000 holders of both types of passes here, most of whom are bona fide.

EPs are for highly skilled people like professionals while S-Passes are for semi-skilled workers.

Those with fake diplomas and other qualifications commit the most common abuse of the work pass system.

Six in 10 of the cases uncovered last year were for such offences, showing that instances of faking degrees and other qualifications, which is increasingly common among Singaporeans, has also increased among foreigners.

Just last month, a managing director, Mahesh Narayan, was fined $6,000 for lying that he held a Master's in Business Administration from Syracuse University, in New York state. The Indian national has an MBA from Osmania University in southern India.

Many of those who fake their qualifications come from China and India. Many pass themselves off as engineers and chefs.

In the usual case, bosses are tricked by those with faked papers, so much so that so-called resume sleuths have emerged - hired to check out would-be employees' CVs.

But some employers are not beyond scrutiny themselves. One employer claimed he had an engineer on his payroll at $2,510 a month when the man earned slightly over $1,000 - just so the worker could meet the minimum salary requirement for an EP.

Employers of these foreign workers - who may not even be aware of their 'virtual pay rise' - use such tricks to get around the quota imposed on the hiring of those on S-Passes.

There is no quota for highly paid, highly skilled workers, such as those who own degrees or other professional qualifications. These workers are allowed into Singapore on employment passes.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) attributes the rise in the number of such offences to the increased enforcement.

Not every application is scrutinised, but a spokesman for the ministry said it sniffs out frauds through 'random checks' to 'verify the authenticity of documents with the relevant authority'. It also acts on tip-offs.

'It is important to remember that the vast majority of EP and S-Pass applicants are bona fide,' she stressed.

A check with some companies found varying standards in verifying the qualifications of their overseas hires.

One restaurant operator with more than a decade's experience said the use of fake certificates to gain work as chefs was not uncommon.

Declining to be named, he claimed: 'Sometimes it's really difficult to detect, but other times, restaurants close their eyes when they know the employee can cook very well.'

At least one company blamed unscrupulous agents for pulling the wool over its eyes.

The firm needed an engineer at the time, and hired a Chinese national through an agent based only on his resume.

Six months later, MOM officials came to the office and arrested the 'degree holder'.

He held only a diploma.

'I saw him before he was sent back. All he could say was sorry,' the company owner said.