5 months’ jail for ex-PCF centre principal who pocketed more than S$79,000

SINGAPORE — A former PAP Community Foundation (PCF) centre principal was sentenced to five months’ on Friday (Feb 17), after siphoning away over S$79,000 from her workplace over two years.

Anna Koh, also known as Susie Koh, was in charge of petty cash and fees collected at the PCF centre at Blk 515 Jurong West Street 52. These included school fees, registration fees and outing fees.

The protocol was for Koh, now 54, to deposit the fees in the centre’s bank account by the next working day, once the collection exceeded S$500.

“Sometime in 2010, the accused began to misappropriate the monies that were entrusted to her. She would deposit part of the sums that were collected from the parents and misappropriate the remainder,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor David Koh.

The money was spent on personal and family expenses, and none of it has been returned so far.

Koh’s offences was discovered after the PCF received an anonymous tip-off on Oct 5, 2012. The organisation conducted an internal audit and discovered that she had taken the money without depositing them at the bank.

Koh starts serving her sentence on Feb 24.

In September last year, former PCF branch administrator Imelda Veni Anthony was jailed four months for misappropriating nearly S$26,000 over two years. A month before that, former PCF Sparkletots Preschool principal Bavani V R Kumaran was fined S$8,000 for pocketing over S$13,500 in fees over nearly two years.