From left: SingPost’s group CEO Vincent Phang and group CFO Vincent Yik, and CEO of the company’s international business unit Li Yu. - ST FILE, BT FILE, SINGPOST
SINGAPORE: Singapore Post (SingPost) has published a detailed account of the disciplinary proceedings leading to the sacking of three of its senior executives, saying that the company’s board of directors had ensured due diligence, and that the three had an opportunity to be heard before making its decision.
In a filing with the Singapore Exchange, SingPost’s board outlined the investigation and disciplinary process leading to the terminations of group chief executive officer (CEO) Vincent Phang, group chief financial officer Vincent Yik and CEO of the implicated international business unit (IBU) Li Yu.
It was responding to stakeholder and media inquiries, and corporate governance concerns.
All three are contesting the decision, and said the reasons provided for their termination are without substantive grounds and that the process leading to the move was not conducted fairly.
The board’s account was detailed in two phases: the first focusing on the falsification of eCommerce shipment data, which had been identified through a whistleblowing report, and the second on the senior executives’ conduct in handling the whistleblowing matter.
The first phase of investigations related to the practice within Yu’s IBU of manually keying in the delivery failure (DF) status code in respect of a significant number of parcels that SingPost had agreed to deliver, which falsely indicated that delivery had been attempted but had failed.
A DF status code counts as a valid status code that indicates that SingPost has tried to make a delivery and would count towards it satisfying certain key performance indicators.
The allegation raised in the whistleblowing reports was that the manual DF data entries were being done to avoid payment of certain contractual penalties to the customer, whose identity remains undisclosed.
The matter was immediately brought to the audit committee’s attention following receipt of the whistleblowing report by SingPost on Jan 17, and investigations conducted by SingPost’s internal auditors commenced that day.
A copy of the whistleblowing report was also made to the Infocomm Media Development Authority (Imda) on Feb 28, although the matter had no impact on local postal and parcel deliveries over which Imda has oversight.
The SingPost board said no public disclosure was made at this stage, as the whistleblowing reports had been submitted in confidence and the allegations had yet to be substantiated pending investigation.
Internal investigations later substantiated the practice of manual DF data entries for the avoidance of penalties under the customer agreement, as alleged in the whistleblowing reports.
They also revealed that SingPost was liable to pay contractual penalties for not meeting specified service level requirements and for false data entries.
As representations made by SingPost’s management in relation to the whistleblowing reports contradicted the findings of internal auditors, the audit committee on April 3 engaged the assistance of external legal counsel and, on April 19, a forensics service provider.
Further investigations confirmed the practice of manual DF data entries to avoid contractual penalties.
On May 6, disciplinary proceedings commenced against three staff from the IBU who were involved in the data falsification.
The board noted that these employees were given the opportunity to respond to the allegations of misconduct against them.
Their employment was terminated on June 12, following the conclusion of these proceedings.
SingPost said it was informed by the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Resolution that the three former IBU staff had submitted claims for wrongful dismissal. — The Straits Times/ANN
