Why did MOM and ICA fail to detect Yang Yin's fake degree in the first place?

by: Forever Vagabond
It was reported in the media that former PRC Yang Yin has pleaded guilty to a total of 120 charges in court on Tuesday (31 May), for falsifying records (http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/ex-tour-guide-yang-yin-weaved-web-of-lies-to-secure-singapore-pr-dpp).
It was said that to get his EP and PR, Yang set up a company (YMDS) to pay him a monthly salary of $5,000.
The DPP told the court, “The accused’s plan all along was to create the false appearance that… (he) was earning a substantial income from YMDS, to support his application for an EP, and subsequently PR status in Singapore.”
“It was never his plan that YMDS would operate a real business,” the DPP added.
Later, by lying to the authorities that he was working and drawing a monthly salary of $7,000 for being the firm’s managing director, among other things, Yang managed to obtain his PR status in 2011.
DPP defended ICA by saying, “ICA (Immigration and Checkpoints Authority) has confirmed that the accused would not have been granted PR status if it had known that any of the abovementioned statements were false.”
If Yang had not been working or not earning any pay at the time, he would not even have satisfied the minimum eligibility criteria for an S Pass or EP, let alone for PR status, the DPP further added.
ICA and MOM did not check for Yang’s fake degree
From the ST report, DPP gave the impression that ICA and MOM were not to be blamed because they couldn’t do anything about it if someone was to lie in his application.
However, there was one thing both ICA and MOM could have checked in Yang’s case and that is, his qualification.
When news of Yang Yin case first came to the media attentions in 2014, it was found out that Yang has stated in his EP/PR application that he has a Bachelor’s degree from the “University of Financial and Trade” in Beijing:
The mainstream media journalists were even able to ascertain that there is no such university in Beijing. The following was an “acceptance letter” supposedly from the non-existent “University of Financial and Trade” (北京财经贸易学院) to show that Yang was accepted by the university to study for a bachelor’s degree in 2006:
Despite having large manpower and big budgets, it appears that ICA and MOM have both failed to check for Yang’s fake degree in the first instance. MOM’s annual budget alone is nearly $2 billion.
That being the case, one must ask how many more “Yang Yins” are there living and working among us with fake degrees? Or are ICA and MOM going to blame those foreign applicants for lying in their applications like in Yang’s case?