A Public Utilities Board staff was jailed for 3 years and 9 months yesterday (27 Nov) for abusing his position to cheat the agency into awarding 718 contracts worth S$2 million to companies registered under his wife’s name.
Technical officer Mohamed Sa’ad Mohamed Ali pleaded guilty to 113 cheating charges and two counts of dealing with the benefits of his criminal behaviour.
More than 600 other charges for similar offences were considered during sentencing.
Mohd Sa’ad was in charge of troubleshooting and maintaining mechanical equipment at Choa Chu Kang Waterworks, and also carrying out the procurement of items such as spare parts for the maintenance of the mechanical equipment at the waterworks.
The 43-year-old registered 3 sole proprietorships under his wife’s name – Hy-Tech Project Services, Hydro Mech Enterprise and Dynatic Technix Project.
When a purchase was initiated under the small value purchase (SVP) procurement process, Mohd Sa’ad was required to obtain 3 quotations and put up a recommendation for a supplier in a “quotation” form.
After the form was submitted to an approving officer and approved, PUB would award the contract to the recommended supplier.
The practice was to recommend the cheapest supplier.
To cheat the PUB, Mohd Sa’ad would provide 3 separate quotations from the 3 companies registered under his wife’s name to ensure that the contract would be awarded to one of them.
His wife would then supply the goods and services to the PUB.
This went on from 2005 to 2012 when he was caught following a PUB internal audit which discovered anomalies in the waterworks’ SVP process.
More than S$460,000 has been seized from Mohd Sa’ad and will be restituted to the PUB.
