Everybody knows Mustafa Centre, right?
This 24-hour shopping haven in Little India sells everything you could possibly want as crazy low prices.
Well, Mustafa Centre made the news again. However, this time not for anything good.
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) Investigates Mustafa Centre After Complaints
A spokesperson for MOM said that they’re currently investigating the shopping centre for “infringing the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.”
A former employee, Mr Abdul Haq Siddique, claimed that Mustafa Centre’s human resource (HR) department collected “cashbacks” from employees.
After his monthly salary was deposited into his account, he is required to go to HR and return $600 to $1000.
The amount will vary based on the amount of overtime he did for that month. And it’s usually the HR manager or his assistant who approached him for the money.
The practice stopped in Oct 2017 after the Mustafa families were involved in a legal dispute.
MOM Giving Out Special Passes To Over 100 Foreign Employees
Mustafa had also allegedly stopped renewing S-Passes in May 2018, affecting about 100 foreign employees.
In other words, the employees are technically illegal workers if they’re still working in Mustafa Centre.
To get them to stay in Singapore to assist in the investigation, MOM gave Special Passes to the affected workers.
If found guilty of receiving kickbacks, you could be fined up to $30,000 or jailed up to two years for each charge.
So, How Serious Are The Charges?
To see how serious these charges are, we went back and search around the net for a similar case. And this was what we’ve found.
Back in 2017, the company director of Aik Heng Contracts and Services was sentenced to 20 months’ jail and fined $157,750.
Her crimes? She hired illegal workers and collected kickbacks between 2014 and 2016.
She had obtained work passes for 10 foreign workers even though she did not have work for them.
And she told them to look for their own jobs.
All in all, she collected $119,000 in kickbacks from 19 workers, 8 of them which she had obtained the work passes for.
She was ordered to return the money she had obtained from the workers back to them and was barred from employing foreign workers.
Director of Mustafa Accused Of Abusing His Position
On Jul 2018, Mr Mustaq’s attempt to get the court to strike off the legal case against him and his family failed.
Mr Mustaq and his wife are accused of abusing their positions to pocket money from the company.
They allegedly paid themselves directors’ fees amounting to 51% of Mustafa Centre’s net profit between 2001 and 2014.
In addition, Mr Mustaq also allegedly created fake invoices and transactions to create the impression that Mustafa Centre owes money to B.I. Distributors Pte Ltd. A company allegedly owned by himself.
The case will proceed to a full trial unless the assistant registrar’s decision is reversed on appeal.
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