SINGAPORE: A former Changi Airport Group (CAG) support officer who accepted bribes to issue Airside Driving Permits (ADPs) to unqualified workers was sentenced to three years and two months’ jail on Friday.
Premkumar Jaya Kumar, 42, took $4,400 from people including a company director.
An ADP allows the permit holder to drive selected vehicles on any part of an airside except for taxiways and runways. An airside is the part of an airport terminal beyond passport and customs control, including places such as hangars and cargo loading areas.
Premkumar, who worked with CAG from Oct 6, 2015, to Dec 25, 2017, had issued the permits even though he knew that company director Diong Yao’s workers did not pass the requisite theory and practical tests.
At the time of the offences, Diong, 41, was a director at Singapura Logistics Support, while another man, Noordin Abdul Gaffor, 48, was then a supervisor at the firm. Their cases are still pending.
Premkumar also modified data in a CAG computer platform called the Apron Permit Issuance and Enforcement System (Apies) to falsify the workers’ profiles and show that they had purportedly passed their theory and practical tests.
He pleaded guilty to offences under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act and multiple counts of graft.
Besides the jail term, he was also ordered to pay a penalty of $7,500. Premkumar will spend an additional 15 days behind bars if he is unable to fork out this amount.
The prosecution said: “By committing these offences, the accused unleashed at least 42 untrained and unlicensed drivers on Changi Airport’s airside. The inherent danger these untrained drivers posed to human safety and property on the airside is exponential.”
Premkumar’s offences came to light when a 19-year-old Malaysian youth, who was then driving a baggage tractor in an airside area, collided with a parked SilkAir plane on Dec 8, 2017.
As a result, the aircraft sustained $795,000 in damage and was declared unfit to fly.
CAG then conducted an investigation and found out that the teenager’s Apies profile was inaccurate and that Premkumar had modified it.
A CAG manager then alerted the police on Dec 15, 2017.
Before committing the offences, Premkumar met Noordin, who was then sitting a theory test as he was applying for an ADP in March 2016.
According to court documents, Noordin later approached Premkumar and told him that his company was servicing a contract with Sats – Changi Airport’s main ground-handling and in-flight catering service provider – that required them to supply drivers at the airside.
Noordin also told Premkumar that the drivers have to obtain their ADPs quickly in order to start work soon.
Noordin asked him to bring forward these drivers’ practical driving test dates, and Premkumar then replied that he will consider the matter.
Deputy public prosecutors Tay Jingxi and Joshua Phang said that on Diong’s instructions sometime later, Noordin offered Premkumar at least $300 per driver whose ADP application he was able to “expedite” in this manner.
Premkumar agreed to this arrangement, which he knew was corrupt.
Among other things, he exercised leniency towards the drivers in their practical tests, ensuring that they passed them. Premkumar also accepted $2,000 in bribes from Diong.
On or before September 2016, Noordin told him that some workers had problems with their theory tests as they were not educated.
Noordin then asked Premkumar to help “expedite” their applications.
The prosecutors said: “(Premkumar) then came up with the idea of identifying existing Apies profiles belonging to valid ADP holders who were no longer working at Changi Airport, and modifying the particulars of these shell profiles to those of Noordin’s drivers.”
Premkumar received another $2,400 in bribes in 2016 and 2017. Improper ADPs were then issued to at least 42 drivers between September 2016 and December 2017.
His offences came to light in December 2017, and he surrendered to the police on Dec 19, 2019.
His bail was set at $25,000 on Friday, and he is expected to surrender at the State Courts on May 17 to begin serving his sentence. - The Straits Times/ANN
