SINGAPORE: Two SMRT Trains employees who worked in a branch dealing with the maintenance of railway tracks set up a company registered in someone else’s name to secretly obtain work from their own employer.
The duo later roped in a third SMRT employee along with a fourth man to front the company and cheated SMRT of more than S$4 million (US$3 million), including a tender for timber sleepers worth S$3 million.
The four men contested their various charges of conspiring to cheat in a long-running trial that spanned several years, and were eventually convicted.
On Wednesday (Nov 12), all four men received jail terms of varying lengths.
The highest-ranked employee, former section manager of the Permanent Way Branch of SMRT Trains, 68-year-old Singaporean Jamalludin Jumari, was given four years and nine months’ jail.
The Permanent Way Branch of SMRT was responsible for the maintenance of MRT railway tracks.
The same sentence was meted out to Jamalludin’s accomplice, former assistant engineer at the same branch, 67-year-old Singaporean Zakaria Mohamed Shariff.
The third employee who was roped into the scheme, 60-year-old Singaporean Zulkifli Marwi, was a line manager at the same branch. He reported to Jamalludin and joined the conspiracy to conceal Jamalludin and Zakaria’s interests from SMRT.
The fourth man, 68-year-old Singaporean Akbar Ali Tambishahib, was drawn into the scheme to be the figurehead director of the company, called Enovation Industries, and a second one set up later, called Enovation Technologies. He was Zakaria’s childhood friend and was not an SMRT employee.
The judge found that Zulkifli and Akbar had a lower level of culpability than the other pair and sentenced them to 26 months’ jail each.
