Migrant worker cleaners who gave operations manager kickbacks were afraid to lose their jobs

It started with an anonymous complaint from a member of the public about migrant worker cleaners in their estate giving money to their manager.

- Christine Tan

Within days, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) deployed about 20 investigation officers to interview more than 30 workers and arrested the manager, Derrick Ho Chiak Hock.

Ho, the former operations manager of conservancy firm Lian Cheng Contracting, had collected $396,440 from 57 Bangladeshi workers from 2014 to 2020 for the renewal of their work permits.

All the workers have since got back their money.

Ho, 55, was sentenced to 24 weeks' jail on Nov 14, 2024, after admitting to offences under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.

Mr Adrian Quek, divisional director of MOM's Foreign Manpower Management Division (FMMD), said this was one of the largest cases of kickbacks the ministry had investigated.

MOM told The Straits Times that from 2021 to 2023, about 70 employers were caught annually for kickback offences.

About 30 per cent of them were charged in court, while the rest received warnings or composition fines.

On Jan 26, Ms Felicia Lim, FMMD's assistant director of investigation and the lead investigator in Ho's case, told ST how the case unravelled.

Ms Lim said the November 2020 complaint mentioned the names of two affected workers.

To avoid alerting Ho, MOM investigators drove the workers from their workplace to the MOM Services Centre in Bendemeer Road for interviews after 10pm.

Initially, the workers were worried that Ho would find out they had spoken to the authorities.

Ms Lim said: "We assured them that if their claims were valid, we will take to task the people who are culpable."

On Nov 19, 2020, officers went to Nee Soon East and Pasir Ris-Punggol estates - where Ho was operations manager - and spoke to all the estate cleaners under his charge.