Jail for ex-director of construction firm over fabricated quotes to Gardens by the Bay

Source: The Straits Times
Author: Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE - A director of a construction firm continued with his predecessor's dishonest ways and became involved in the submission of 48 fabricated supporting quotations to Gardens by the Bay.

Tan Hong Chian, 59, was the director and sole decision-maker of Full House Building Construction when the firm was awarded 25 jobs under the dishonest scheme, and they were worth nearly $96,000 in all.

On March 18, he pleaded guilty to 10 charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act and was sentenced to four weeks' jail.

He is no longer a director at Full House but a search with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority reveals that he is still a shareholder there.

His predecessor and sister-in-law at the time of the offences, Goh Siew Ling, then 51, was sentenced to 13 weeks' jail in April 2023 after she pleaded guilty to 20 charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In earlier proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Vincent Ong said Goh, who is also known as Margaret, was a director at Full House from July 2013 to June 2018.

DPP Ong told the court: "Margaret was the key mover and genesis of the conspiracy, whose directions set the entire scheme into motion and perpetuated it across different employees in Full House through her instructions. She is by far the most culpable person involved in the conspiracy."

She was linked to 88 fabricated quotations. As a result, Full House was awarded 49 jobs worth nearly $766,000 in all from 2017 to 2018.

On July 4, 2017, Gardens by the Bay awarded the firm a two-year term contract for building improvement and maintenance work.

The contract had set out a schedule of rates (SOR) that listed the agreed rates for specified common building improvement and maintenance work.

For such jobs, Full House would invoice Gardens by the Bay according to the SOR.

There were other work with no rates specified, known as "star rate items".

For such jobs, Full House had to independently obtain three quotations from other firms. It was allowed to submit its own quotation as one of the three.

These submitted quotations would then be reviewed by Gardens by the Bay staff. If they were in order, the staff would make recommendations to their director for approval.

From July 2017, Full House did not obtain genuine quotations from other firms for star rate items after Goh hatched a scheme to fabricate two quotations that were priced higher than the one from Full House.

As part of the ruse, two of her subordinates would prepare two fictitious quotations using soft-copy templates of other contractors' company letterheads which Goh had provided.

The subordinates would intentionally price the two quotes higher than the one from Full House.

Full House's quotation and the two fictitious ones would then be submitted to Gardens by the Bay staff.

On multiple occasions, the job was awarded to Full House.

In 2018,Tan became a director at Full House after buying out its other shareholders identified as Goh and his brother.

He continued committing similar offences from July to December 2018.

Among other things, Tan worked with his then subordinates in a case involving fabricated quotations for painting work at the attraction.

The fabricated quotations contained statements that were false, stating that two other companies had each purportedly quoted sums of more than $6,000 for the job, when in fact, both firms had no intention of performing the task.

Full House, which issued a quotation of $3,600, later clinched the job, the court heard.

Tan's bail was set at $15,000 on March 18, and he is expected to surrender himself at the State Courts on April 4 to begin serving his sentence.