Five Singapore firms convicted over foreign workers

SINGAPORE - Five companies were convicted for failing to provide acceptable accommodation for their foreign workers (FWs). The companies were also found guilty of failing to pay their FWs’ salaries on time, and not updating their FWs’ addresses in the Online Foreign Worker Address System (OFWAS).

The five companies are Soon Aik Marine Engineering Pte Ltd, Soon Aik Offshore Pte Ltd, Soon Aik Shipbuilding Pte Ltd, Yong Soon Shipbuilding Pte Ltd, and Yong Soon Marine Engineering Pte Ltd. They pleaded guilty to 44 charges collectively for the housing, OFWAS and salary offences, and were fined a total of S$80,000.

174 charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The Ministry of Manpower will also bar the five companies from hiring new FWs or renewing the Work Passes of existing workers.

On April 12, last year MOM conducted inspections of the premises in Tuas where the FWs were living in and found that these were not authorised for use as workers’ dormitories.

The premises were overcrowded, crammed and dirty. There were insufficient toilets, overflowing rubbish bins and infestations of rodents and cockroaches. There was also no proper emergency exit route at the dormitories.

MOM ordered the companies to relocate the affected workers to approved accommodation immediately following the inspections.

With the exception of Yong Soon Shipbuilding Pte Ltd, the other four companies had also failed to update OFWAS when their FWs were relocated from Sungei Kadut to the illegal dormitories in Tuas in 2011.

The five accused companies failed to pay the basic salaries of the FWs on time. MOM said the salaries owed to workers have since been recovered.

In the first four months of this year, MOM conducted about 300 inspections and took action against 428 employers for housing violations.

Under the Employment of Foreign Manpower (Work Passes) Regulations, employers are required to provide acceptable accommodation that complies with the various statutory requirements for their FWs.

Employers must also register or update their FWs’ residential addresses through the OFWAS within five days of commencement of employment, or when there is a change in the workers’ residential addresses. CHANNEL NEWSASIA