Jail for man who obtained $900 in bribes from 3 cleaning firm staff when he was an NEA inspector
A National Environment Agency (NEA) route inspector obtained bribes totalling $900 from three employees of a company in the public cleaning business.
Ruzdiman Salhan Mohamed Salim, whose duties included inspecting routes that such companies had cleaned in public places, also attempted to obtain another $1,800 in bribes from two of the three people.
He had made the requests for the money as he knew the trio - an operations manager, an operations executive and a cleaning supervisor - would be pressured to give in as he was the inspector for the routes they oversaw.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Benedict Teong said: (The trio) would be concerned about him showing disfavour in his inspections of the routes."
On May 22, the 44-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to 24 weeks' jail and ordered to pay a penalty of $2,420 after he pleaded guilty to five graft charges. Another 10 charges were considered during his sentencing.
The Straits Times has reached out to NEA to find out his current employment status with it.
DPP Teong said that to ensure public cleanliness, NEA would engage various service providers, like the trio's employer YS Yong Services, to clean public spaces.
Route inspectors were tasked to walk the routes at such areas within four hours of a cleaning session to check if the job had been properly done.
If there were any issues during such checks, the route inspector would indicate the lapses observed in NEA's internal system, which would in turn churn out a "defect notice" for the relevant service provider.
Depending on the number of lapses indicated, the notice would either set out an advisory or inform the service provider of the number of default points they had been issued.
The number of default points would correlate to the number of negative observations indicated by the route inspector, and these points would directly translate into monetary damages for the service provider.
A greater number of default points would lead to a larger sum that had to be paid to NEA.
Between 2017 and 2022, Ruzdiman was deployed to be the route inspector in the south-west region, and some of the places there were handled by YS Yong. He then got to know the trio, the court heard.
On May 21, 2019, he called the operations manager to ask for a loan to settle his divorce fees and to pay for his children's necessities.
He initially asked for $1,000 and the woman was taken aback at his request as she knew that she should not loan him the money given his role as an NEA route inspector.
The DPP said: "(However) she was concerned that if she simply rejected his request, he would make trouble for her team of operation executives and the cleaning crew by issuing more default points through nitpicking unnecessarily on the cleaning works they performed."
The woman then agreed to loan him a reduced sum of $350 and transferred the amount to him via the PayNow service.
Ruzdiman contacted her again through WhatsApp about three months later and asked for a loan of $300, claiming that he needed to pay some bills.
She rejected this request, telling him that she had just given birth and did not have spare cash.
On Aug 8, 2019, Ruzdiman contacted the male operations executive to ask for a loan of $300, claiming that he was going through divorce proceedings and needed money.
The latter's first instinct was to reject the request as they were not close and because they also had a "sensitive relationship" as Ruzdiman was the inspector of the routes the executive oversaw.
However, the executive later gave in and transferred the $300 via PayNow as he did not want Ruzdiman to "create problems" for him and his team.
Ruzdiman later asked for another $50 from the executive, who complied and transferred the amount.
In April 2022, Ruzdiman contacted him through WhatsApp, asking for a loan of $1,500.
DPP Teong said: "(The executive) told the accused that he did not have that much money left and offered to lend the accused $100 instead. The accused however did not accept this counter-offer."
Separately, on April 17, 2022, Ruzdiman contacted the male cleaning supervisor to ask for a loan of $2,000, claiming that he was going through a divorce and had no money to buy Hari Raya clothes for his children.
The supervisor replied that he did not have that much to spare and offered $200 instead.
Ruzdiman accepted the offer and later received $200 from the man via PayNow.
The DPP said: "(The supervisor had) felt pressured to accede to the accused's request as he was concerned that the accused may make things difficult for him by issuing a higher number of default points during route inspections."
Ruzdiman did not repay the loans he had taken from the trio and he was later charged in court in 2023.
His bail was set at $15,000 on May 22 and he is expected to begin serving his sentence on May 29.
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