By Elena Chong, Courts Correspondent

A THIRD man in an alleged 'phantom worker' scam by a cleaning services company appeared in court yesterday.

Tay Hian Chye, 47, who was among four men charged, is a director of the SME Group of companies. He is accused of 101 charges similar to those faced by fellow director Steven Lee Kong Weng, 60, and Lim Chye Cheng, 52, last week.

Lee and Lim, together with eight others, were charged last Friday with falsely declaring the number of local workers they employed so as to inflate their foreign worker quota.

Tay is said to have conspired with Lee and Lim to give false information to the Controller of Work Passes on 101 occasions in their applications for work permits for about 600 foreign workers last year.

The prosecution comes after painstaking intelligence probes and investigations by officers from the Ministry of Manpower into a few companies in the past few months.

Employers who have difficulty recruiting workers turn to a variety of ways, including resorting to what the industry terms as 'ghost workers'.

To bump up the number of locals, errant employers typically collude with retirees, odd-job labourers, friends and family members.

Having these unseen workers on their payroll allows them to hire more foreign workers.

For instance, in the construction industry, one local must be on the payroll before the employer can hire seven foreign workers.

The other three who were charged yesterday were: Soo Eng Yong, 45, owner of Superb Plastics; Liu Li-Liu, 33, Superb's manager; and Teo Kok Leong, 31, owner of Polo Manufacturing.

Tay, who is out on $50,000 bail, is seeking legal advice. His next court date is Thursday. If convicted, the accused face a fine of up to $15,000 or a jail term which may extend to 12 months or both on each charge.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.