Integrity Focus

A former manager of a cleaning service contractor of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), charged by the ICAC, was today (September 20) sentenced to 160 hours of community service at the Kwun Tong Magistrates’ Courts for deceiving three subordinate cleaning workers into returning wage differences totalling over $38,000 in a span of nearly two years, by falsely representing to them that the employer had miscalculated their wages.

Choy Wai-hong, 50, former contract manager of Sparkle Environmental Services Limited (Sparkle), earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud, contrary to section 16A of the Theft Ordinance. He was also earlier ordered to make a compensation of over $38,000 to the three cleaning workers, equivalent to the total amount of which the defendant had pocketed from them.

In sentencing, Magistrate Miss Lau Suk-han remarked that the defendant committed the crime out of greed and the case was serious. The magistrate added that the workers did not earn much and the defendant was literally “snatching from the beggar’s bowl”. Considering that the defendant was remorseful, the magistrate hence imposed a community service order on him.

The court heard that at the material time, the defendant was a contract manager of Sparkle, a cleaning service contractor of the FEHD. He was responsible for supervising the company’s foremen and cleaning workers posted to Sai Kung District, and handling relevant matters of recruitment and employment contracts.

The offences took place between August 2020 and July 2022. The defendant, without Sparkle’s authorisation, made false representations to three cleaning workers concerned that they were employed and paid as casual workers. Subsequently, the defendant falsely represented to the three workers that Sparkle had miscalculated their wages, and deceived the trio into returning part of their wages, totalling over $38,000, to him.

The ICAC investigation arose from a corruption complaint in relation to workers’ wages. Enquiries revealed that the trio were in fact Sparkle’s full-time employees who were entitled to higher pay rates, but the defendant made false representations to them that they were employed as casual cleaning workers at a daily wage of either $420 or $450 only. Meanwhile, the defendant had never returned to Sparkle the wages which he defrauded out of the trio.

The FEHD and Sparkle rendered full assistance to the ICAC during its investigation into the case.

The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officers Zacky Chan and Alex Fu.