• Tiong Shi Lin first deceived the Government into disbursing S$2,400 from the Covid-19 Support Grant
• She lied that she was still jobless but she had already secured a new job by then
• A few months later, she submitted another application with a fake termination letter from her new employer
• She managed to claim S$1,600 from the grant before a colleague discovered the letter in her laptop bag

SINGAPORE — After being fired from her human resources job, Tiong Shi Lin found a new one at another firm but decided to lie to the Government that she was still jobless.

Tiong, 31, also forged a termination letter from her new employer in order to cheat the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) into approving her fourth application for the Covid-19 Support Grant.

The financial support scheme, which was meant to help individuals who had lost their job or lost income for reasons related to the Covid-19 pandemic, was opened for application from May to December last year.

Tiong received a total of S$4,000 in cash grants before her colleague discovered the forged letter in her laptop bag when she handed it in for repairs.

On Monday (Sept 13), the Singaporean was sentenced to seven months’ jail. She pleaded guilty to three charges of cheating and forgery, with four other charges — including giving false information to a public servant — taken into consideration for sentencing.

She will begin serving her sentence next week after requesting time to make care arrangements for her children.

HOW IT BEGAN

The court heard that Tiong worked in the human resources department of TVH Singapore, a supplier of spare parts for industrial vehicles, from October 2019 to February 2020.

Two months after her employment was terminated, she began working at software firm Assurance Technology as an administrative and accounts assistant.

She then cooked up a plan to trick MSF into disbursing cash grants to her, even though she knew that she did not meet the eligibility criteria.

On May 5 last year, she submitted an application for the Covid-19 Support Grant online, declaring that she had been unemployed since her termination.

MSF rejected her application because she did not provide sufficient supporting documentation.

She submitted another application the next day, providing screenshots of a series of WhatsApp messages with her former supervisor to show that she had lost her job.

She also provided a Central Provident Fund (CPF) statement but intentionally left out the month of May 2020, when she had begun working for Assurance Technology and received a CPF contribution.

MSF approved this application after confirming Tiong’s termination with her former supervisor and disbursed S$800 monthly to her for three months.

The ministry automatically rejected her third application, which was made an hour after the second one. She had included a payslip from TVH Singapore for the month of February 2020, but it did not contain the monthly salary declaration on the WhatsApp screenshots she earlier provided.

SUBMITTED ONE MORE APPLICATION

Several months later, Tiong decided to put in an application again when the second window for applications opened in October.

She forged a retrenchment letter from Assurance Technology, which stated her employment was to be terminated on Sept 14.

In order to do this, she accessed the company’s shared human resources folder and downloaded a template termination letter on her company-issued laptop.

She dated the letter Aug 17 and amended it to state that she was being fired because the firm needed to cut manpower. She then forged her boss’s signature.

When the application window opened, she submitted a fourth application, providing a photograph of the forged letter and several screenshots purporting to show that she had applied for other jobs. She also listed a fake name and contact number as a contact person for Assurance Technology.

MSF approved this application and disbursed S$800 each in October and November. They stopped the disbursement for December after investigations began.

Tiong had returned her company-issued laptop in its laptop bag to a colleague for repairs on Nov 3. The colleague discovered the letter and reported it.

Tiong’s boss, the human resources director, then made a police report on Nov 24. Tiong was arrested on the same day.

When questioned by the police, she initially claimed that she had never applied for the grant, then claimed that an MSF officer had submitted the second and third applications on her behalf.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Joshua Phang sought at least eight months’ jail, saying Tiong had deliberately exploited the pandemic and that her offences may not have been discovered if her colleague had not found the forged letter.

Tiong could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined for each offence of forgery and cheating.