Data falsification at SingPost business unit limited to its contract with affected customer

Investigations into a whistle-blowing matter that led to the termination of the employment of Singapore Post’s group chief executive and two other senior executives have determined that the issues raised in a whistle-blowing report were isolated.

The issues, which involved the falsification of e-commerce shipment data to avoid penalties by three staff of SingPost’s international business unit, were found to be limited only to its contract with a specific customer, SingPost said on Dec 29.

It was responding to questions submitted on Dec 22 by the Securities Investors Association (Singapore), or Sias, on whether the company would be carrying out a groupwide review to ensure that all its other business units are operating in accordance with rules and protocols.

The investigations that followed the report confirmed that the three employees at the international business unit had manually keyed in false “DF”, or “delivery failure”, status codes on parcels for which no attempts at delivery were made, with the intention of avoiding contractual penalties. The three were subsequently fired.

SingPost added that the practice of making manual “DF” data entries on undelivered parcels had ceased upon the instructions of its audit committee to its management following the investigations.

Corrective action was also taken to prevent similar occurrences and address all relevant operational gaps, and will be reviewed by the audit committee for its effectiveness, it said.

SingPost told Sias that it received a whistle-blowing report in January. The same report was sent in February to the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), which has oversight over local postal and parcel deliveries.

Subsequent reviews of the allegations in the report led to disciplinary proceedings against the former group CEO, former group chief financial officer and CEO of the international business unit for handling them improperly, thus undermining the investigation process.

SingPost said the three senior executives made serious misrepresentations concerning those allegations to the audit committee.

It has told Sias that its internal investigation report will not be published.

SingPost said its announcement on Dec 22 that it had sacked its group CEO and two senior executives following the investigations was made in accordance with Singapore Exchange listing rules.

An account by the board was also released on Dec 29 to address comments and queries from stakeholders and the media.

SingPost said its announcements on Dec 22 and 29 also disclosed that an eventual settlement with the affected customer will have no material financial impact on the group. It added that the contract with the affected customer was renewed in August, after terms taking into account acceptable key performance indicators were renegotiated.

Singpost did not reveal the terms of the previous and current contracts with the customer, the identity of the customer, and the settlement amount.

In reply to The Straits Times’ queries, an IMDA spokesman noted on Dec 23 that the incidents concerned SingPost’s deliveries of international e-commerce parcels overseas.

Quick checks on the internet showed that SingPost’s international business unit serves e-commerce customers like Lazada, AliExpress and Amazon.

These customers use SingPost’s cross-border delivery and fulfilment solutions to ship products from sellers in China and elsewhere, to buyers in various countries, including Singapore and other South-east Asian markets.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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