Integrity Focus

Following the guilty pleas of five co-defendants, three of the eight employees of a contractor of a commercial complex construction project, charged by the ICAC, today (September 1) admitted at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts that they had falsified the attendance records of workers by altering the facial images registered with the facial recognition system at the construction site to defraud the contractor of wage payments totalling over $250,000.

The defendants were Tang Yu-ching, former assistant general foreman of Sunnic Engineering Limited (Sunnic); Chan Tin-hon, former foreman of Sunnic; Lai Yu-kiu, then site administration officer of Sunnic; and five construction workers, namely Chiu Kim-wan, Choi Yun, See Kwok-shing, Johnny Chong Kam-hung and Mak Chi-kin.

The eight defendants, aged between 35 and 58, pleaded guilty to a total of six counts of fraud, contrary to section 16A (1) of the Theft Ordinance. Among them, Lai, See and Chong entered guilty pleas today, while the five co-defendants had pleaded guilty to the offences earlier.

Magistrate Mr Gary Chu Man-hon remanded Tang in the custody of the Correctional Services Department, pending his background report for sentence on September 15. The seven co-defendants were granted bail, pending their community service order reports for sentence on September 30.

The ICAC investigation stemmed from a corruption complaint. The court heard that in June 2021, Sunnic was engaged as the main contractor of the construction project of a commercial complex in Tsim Sha Tsui. Tang and Chan, respectively the assistant general foreman and foreman of Sunnic, were responsible for supervising the operation of the construction site of the project.

Workers of the project were required to register their facial images with the facial recognition system for accessing the site. They were also required to scan their faces for taking attendance when reporting on and off duty. Based on the attendance records, Sunnic would calculate and release wage payments each month. Lai was authorised to operate the system at the material time.

The court heard that between December 2022 and January 2023, Tang had referred six construction workers, including Chiu, Choi, See, Chong and Mak, to work at the site as general workers. Facial images of the six workers were registered in the facial recognition system by Chan.

The relevant attendance records showed that the six workers had respectively worked at the site for 36 days to 43 days, leading to Sunnic’s subsequent release of wage payments totalling over $250,000 to a subcontractor. But ICAC enquiries revealed that Tang had told the workers that they were not required to work at the site and the wage payments were eventually passed to Tang and Chan.

The ICAC investigation revealed that Tang had arranged Chan, with the assistance of Lai, to alter the facial images of the six workers registered with the facial recognition system by replacing them with Chan’s facial image so as to falsify the workers’ attendance records by scanning Chan’s face.

Sunnic rendered full assistance to the ICAC during its investigation into the case.

The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Ken Yip.