A 34-year-old woman forged a doctor’s signature and submitted fake documents to the authorities, claiming she suffered from a respiratory illness so she could withdraw money from her CPF account, reported Zaobao
The accused, Nasuha Zakaria, faced seven charges in total.
On Tuesday (Aug 12) morning, she pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and one count of forgery. The judge took the remaining charges into consideration and sentenced her to five months and 10 weeks in jail.
According to court documents, in January 2021, the CPF Board received two documents from Nasuha. One was a medical memo issued by Singapore General Hospital stating that she had a respiratory illness. The other was another memo, supposedly from a different doctor at the same hospital, also certifying that she had a respiratory illness.
Nasuha had submitted these documents in an attempt to withdraw money from her CPF savings on medical grounds.
However, during the verification process, the CPF Board noticed irregularities in the signatures in the “doctor” section. Staff contacted the hospital to confirm and were told that no doctor had signed the documents she provided.
Nasuha later admitted that she had forged the signatures herself on both documents because she wanted to withdraw the money quickly.
The prosecution pointed out that although the CPF Board did not suffer any financial loss, such actions undermine the Board’s primary responsibility of safeguarding members’ long-term financial security, and should be strongly deterred.
Her lawyer pleaded for leniency, saying that Nasuha regrets her actions, plans to further her studies, find proper employment, and provide a stable life for her daughter.
