ICA officer gets four months' jail for forging MCs
AsiaOne
Friday, Aug 31, 2012
An Immigration and CHeckpoints Authority (ICA) officer was sentenced to four months' jail for forging medical certificates.
On Friday, staff sergeant Mohammad Saqib Mohd Ghalib, 34, admitted to five charges of fraudulently making the MCs issued by Kao & Tan Family Medical Centre & Surgery. He did this by cancelling the period of his MCs and altering the dates unlawfully, said The Straits Times.
Ten other charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.
Saqib made the changes to the MCs between December 2010 and March 2011.
A court was told that Saqib, who was attached to the Woodlands checkpoint for the past seven years, would tell the doctors that they needed to stamp and sign on the MC three times in order for his office to believe the MC was genuine.
The extra stamps and signatures on the MC made them appear that the doctors themselves had amended the MC and endorsed the amendments with the counter-signatures.
Whenever he needed to account for his absence from work, he went to the Telok Blangah Post Office to alter the MCs.
Saqib's supervisor went through his MCs after he exceeded his annual medical leave entitlement by 42 days. He had forged at least 15 MCs.
In total, Saqib had not shown up for work for four months by using vacation leave, MCs from clinics, government clinics and forged certificates.
He could have been jailed for up to four years and/or fined on each charge.
