Hundreds, possibly thousands, of migrant workers have been victimised one way or another by the misuse of the Training Employment Pass. We wrote about this in several recent articles: Management executives washing dishes, Media coverage and more, If you complain, we will kill you, and Scams and substitutions: case #3 of 3.

We also had a case from 2023 which we have written up: Cook wins salary case despite employer cooking up evidence.

Since those initial cases, more workers have come into our office to seek help, one of which was a guy we will call Harry. He had a Training Employment Pass way back in early 2023, and the irregularities surrounding it came to the Ministry of Manpower’s notice in May of that year. Apparently, an investigation was launched, but Harry didn’t know of TWC2 then. When he finally heard of us, he came to your office (July 2025) and we’re a little shocked to hear that the two-year-old case is still unresolved. We will describe Harry’s case below.

After Channel NewsAsia and the Straits Times carried news about our exposé, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) responded on 1 July 2025 in a letter to the Straits Times disclosing some interesting information. They said they have “mounted several proactive operations to detect abuse of the TEP scheme,” and that “Arising from these operations, about 70 companies are now being investigated for offences such as making false declarations in work pass applications.”

It’s good that investigations have begun, though one would naturally like to hear if any company or director has been charged.

Because there had not been a squeak about MOM’s “proactive operations” until we broke the story on this website in May 2025, it was easy to assume that MOM had been unaware of the rapidly growing misuse of the Training Employment Pass (TEP) among employers desperate for cheap labour. What Harry’s story demonstrates, however, is that we may be mistaken and that MOM had at least one case under investigation dating from 2023. So, it can’t be true that they were unaware though that still leaves the question of whether they were treating it as an isolated case instead of seeing it as an example of a broader scourge.

Yet, that case (which we will describe below) had still not been concluded as at mid-2025. In the meantime, more and more cases of TEP abuse have taken place. So, even if they had seen it as a broader scourge, their response (if any) must have been almost lethargic. In the meantime, the abuse of the TEP spread, affecting more and more victims.

Highly recommended

Harry (name changed) is from Punjab state, India. He came to Singapore at the beginning of March 2023 and started working for a cleaning company which we shall refer to here as Mayhaw Klean. He had been recruited by someone in India whom he paid about $2,800 for matching him with a Singapore job; in addition to that cost, Harry bought his own air ticket to Singapore.

How did you find this agent? we asked him.

“My friend came to Singapore and worked under Training Employment Pass,” Harry explains, “and he recommended the same agent to me.”

On arrival, Harry had in hand an In-principle Approval (IPA) letter from MOM which stated that he would be on a Training Employment Pass with a monthly salary of $1,500. It was the agent who passed him the copy of the In-principle Approval. Although not stated on the IPA, he knew he would be doing a kitchen cleaning and dishwashing job and indeed that was what Mayhaw Klean assigned him to do.

The above facts alone are red flags. A Training Employment Pass is meant for management executives or high-level professionals on short-term attachment not exceeding three months. It’s not a workpass category meant for dishwashers. Moreover, the minimum salary should be $3,000 a month, not $1,500.

Harry didn’t know any of this, of course. He relied on what his agent (in India) told him. It is employers who are supposed to know this and should be held accountable for any violation of the rules.

“I worked twelve hours every day,” Harry tells TWC2. He was not paid any overtime wages for working more than eight or nine hours each day. He was also supposed to have four rest days a month, but he often traded his rest days for extra work. “They pay me $72 extra if I work on my day off.” Essentially, Harry had no quarrel with the work or the remuneration. It was what he had been led to expect, anyway.

Pressured by agent to lie

A little shy of three months into his job, someone from the company, Mayhaw Klean, told him he was required to go to MOM for an interview. The company didn’t really say what it was about, but the agent called him from India.

He describes that call to TWC2: “My agent tell me that when I go to MOM, I must say my salary is $3,000, not $1,500.” That was the first time he heard that magic number: three thousand – and from the same guy who had given him an IPA document that said his salary would be $1,500.

On or around 30 May 2023, he showed up for his appointment at MOM. As foreshadowed by the agent’s phone call, the officer there asked him what his salary was. Harry had by then decided he was not going to lie. He gave the officer the true answer: $1,500. The officer then showed him the ministry’s copy of his In-principle Approval, says Harry, on which the salary stated was $3,000 per month.

“That was first time I see that IPA,” Harry tells TWC2. “MOM said that was the genuine IPA, so that means the IPA they [the agent] gave me was fake.”

Illegally modified IPAs are commonplace. We have written about them from time to time, including Several cases of forgery of crucial MOM document, Seeing double: an unexplained mystery, and Scams and substitutions: case #3 of 3. We have urged that the PDF version of IPAs be discontinued since too many fraudsters have the skills to photoshop it. IPA should only be available online on MOM’s system via secure access.

After the MOM meeting, Harry was asked by his company superiors what happened at MOM. Specifically, they asked him what he said when he was asked about his salary. “I tell my boss I said $3,000 to MOM.”

It’s a lie, but not knowing what the company would do to him should he tell them that he had blown apart their scheme, it was the safer thing to do. Harry thinks the company was satisfied with his answer, and he went back to work for about two more weeks before his Training Employment Pass expired.

Asked to stay on in Singapore

When the pass expired, the company asked him to prepare to go home and issued him an embarkation form, which signals that the worker is supposed to leave Singapore. One week later however, this form was exchanged for a Special Pass, and Harry was asked by MOM to remain in Singapore. To us in the know, issuance of a Special Pass in a case like this indicates that MOM had opened an investigation into the company Mayhaw Klean. Harry confirms that that was his understanding too.

“I am [supposed to be] the witness,” Harry says when we ask him why MOM wanted him to remain in Singapore.

Since he now had to stay on in Singapore at the State’s request, Harry was put on the Temporary Job Scheme (TJS) and, somewhat to our surprise, he’s had three temporary Work Permit-level jobs since, each lasting a few months. Jobs under TJS are meant to last six months at most. We say “to our surprise” because what this indicates is that the investigation has been going on for two years already, since Harry’s interview at MOM in May 2023.

Why does it take so long?

Sometimes, workers are happy to be on TJS; they have a job, they have a bed for the night. And for a while, Harry was glad for that too. Unfortunately, he’s not been able to find a further TJS job after the third one and he’s been without work for the last few months. He is still searching but TWC2 stands ready to ask MOM to allow him to go home, if that’s what he wants. Harry is still thinking about it.

In summary, Harry’s case raises two important questions:

1.  Why do investigations into abuse of the Training Employment Pass take so long?

2.  If MOM had a sense two years ago that these passes were being mis-used, why was the problem not nipped in the bud, but allowed to grow for months and years, affecting more and more workers?

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