By Khushwant Singh
FOR $3,000, Ministry of Manpower officer M. Jayabalan promised to help a businessman 'settle a case' of illegal deployment of foreign workers - but did nothing.
The 42-year-old was jailed six months on Tuesday and ordered to pay a penalty of $3,000 for accepting the illegal gratification in November 2008. He was also jailed three months for possessing more than 1,500 obscene films which were found in his house in a police raid in January last year.
As the sentence was ordered to run concurrently, he would have to serve six months in jail.
The district court heard that Jayabalan was a housing enforcement officer in charge of inspecting dormitories of foreign workers. When his friend Madavakhandam Panjanathan asked him in October 2008 if he could help sole proprietor Khairul Shah A. Abrahim in some MOM matters, he agreed to help.
The boss of Parvin Engineering and Services was then being investigated for deploying three of its foreign workers in jobs that contravened their work permits.
The $3,000 was paid through Madavakhandam on two occasions. As Jayabalan was not involved in investigation work at all, he was unable to influence the outcome of the case against Khairul Shah and nothing was done.