A former construction site supervisor, charged by the ICAC, was today (Wednesday) sentenced to six months' imprisonment at Kwun Tong Magistracy for using false attendance records to exploit wages from workers.

So Kwok-ping, 57, formerly employed by Treasure Hill Development Limited trading as Living Culture, was earlier found guilty of eight counts of agent using a document with intent to deceive his principal, contrary to Section 9(3) of the Prevention of Brib ery Ordinance.

So was also ordered by Magistrate Mr Thomas Chan to return $27,900 to Living Culture.

The court heard that in February 2004, Living Culture was awarded a project to renovate six two-storey houses of Sienna Garden in Fei Ngo Shan.

Living Culture subcontracted the renovation works of one of the houses to an engineering company, of which the defendant was then employed as a site supervisor.

On July 13, 2004, Living Culture terminated the contract with the engineering company due to the slow progress of its works. Instead, Living Culture employed the defendant to supervise the Sienna Garden project.

The court heard that the defendant had recruited a number of construction workers on behalf of Living Culture to work at Sienna Garden, and offered daily wages ranging from $420 to $600.

Between July and November 2004, the defendant made false entries into workers' attendance records with inflated wages.

The defendant submitted those attendance records to Living Culture, purporting that the workers were employed at the inflated wages.

After the workers received their wages, the defendant asked the workers to return the inflated amounts to him.

As a result, the defendant pocketed a total of $27,900 from the workers, the court was told.

The prosecution was today represented by Mr Steven Kwan, counsel on fiat, assisted by ICAC officer Albert Wong.