SINGAPORE — A former officer with a Social Service Office (SSO) who pocketed more than S$340,000 in funds meant for the needy and later used it to fund his extravagant lifestyle was sentenced to 5 years and 4 months’ jail on Thursday (Dec 22).
Chia Kwang Hwee, 33, was earlier convicted of 19 charges – 15 counts for assessing a computer to commit a criminal breach of trust as public servant, two counts for the criminal breach of trust as a public servant and another two counts for transferring the benefits of his criminal conduct.
Another 107 similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
Between June 2009 and June 2013, Chia was a manager with the South East Community Development Council (CDC) and after June 2013, he was employed as a manager with the SSO at Geylang Serai.
Both positions saw him facilitating the disbursement of monies from the Community Care Endowment Fund (ComCare) to the low-income and needy individuals and families.
While working at the South East CDC in 2012, Chia collected about 95 cheques totalling S$59,420 that were issued by the CDC to the beneficiaries. But instead of handing them over to the beneficiaries, he encashed the cheques and deposited the monies into his own account.
He did the same thing in the following year, where he encashed about 219 cheques that amounted to S$137,640.
When ComCare payments could be transferred via GIRO into beneficiaries’ bank accounts after December 2013, Chia misused his access rights to the system and entered his own bank account details.
He later reset the passwords of 15 other SSO officers so that he could use their accounts to approve the cases he had put up on the system and receive the monies – totalling S$67,100 – in his bank account.
The case only came to light on Aug 14, 2014 when a ComCare beneficiary told the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) that he had not received his financial assistance payments.
Investigations revealed that Chia used about S$130,000 to repay his debts and another S$100,000 on gifts of cash to his relatives.
He splurged the remaining S$110,000 on various luxury services, such as spa and hair salon packages, expensive meals, holidays and branded goods.
In August, the MSF said that following the incident, the ministry contacted all 42 affected clients to ensure that they had received the assistance they needed.
Its internal auditor conducted checks on all the SSOs’ payment records and confirmed that there were no similar incidents.
The ministry also tightened its processes controls at these offices, implementing various recommendations made by an independent review panel.
For example, it strengthened the administration of access to the IT system and put in additional checks to ensure payments to clients. It also allocated cases such that no officer will be allowed to take charge of a particular client for more than two consecutive years.
