United Engineers (UE) Limited, a local environmental engineering and property services company, has been defrauded of over $11 million dollars worth of assets between the financial years 2010 and 2014. Local banking giant Overseas-Chinese Banking Corp is known to have a 20.47% share in the company.
In a statement today, UE announced that a number of employees from a UE subsidiary, United Engineers Developments, were suspended because they had forged proposed contracts so as to award contract tenders to certain preferred third party contractors for their own benefit.
The irregularities were found during a routine audit conducted in late May.
“In these transactions, quotations for proposed contracts were found to have been forged by the Employees. This was carried out with the view of preferring certain third party contractors, which would then be awarded the relevant contracts... Based on available information and pending further inquiries, these transactions appear to have taken place between 2010 and 2015 and the value of the contracts amount to approximately S$11 million.”
Investigations are ongoing and further announcements will be made, said United Engineers.
UE was founded in 1912 and is one of Singapore’s oldest companies involved in the physical and economic development of Singapore. It's board members boasts a list of financial heavyweights, such as Non-Executive Chairman of UE, Mr Tan Ngiap Joo, who is also a director in the board of OCBC.