Transport department engineer admits pocketing at least $110,000 in kickbacks

A former project engineer at NSW’s transport department who entered into a corrupt relationship with the alleged mastermind of the scandal engulfing the government agency has admitted that he himself pocketed at least $110,000 in cash kickbacks from a road contractor.

Phone messages and invoices were shown to an anti-corruption inquiry on Thursday that helped detail the arrangements and communications between the two Transport for NSW officials and Jason Chellew, founder of now-failed Grafton contractor Protection Barriers.

In his second day at the inquiry, former Transport for NSW senior project engineer David Liu said his role in the deal with his workmate, Ibrahim Helmy, and Chellew was to sign off on payment claims that included items not actually required in work by the contractor for the agency.

Liu confirmed the deal with the pair effectively started in May 2021 when he arranged to meet Helmy, and they had a conference call with Chellew.

During that call, Liu said Helmy explained he had a proposal whereby he would add extra work items to invoices that were not delivered to Transport for NSW while also inflating rates. Liu confirmed that his own role was to “look the other way” when Helmy added the extra work items.

Under their arrangement, Chellew took a 50 per cent cut of the inflated amounts, while Helmy and Liu each received a 25 per cent share.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating allegations Helmy was the mastermind behind corrupt relationships with nine companies, including Protection Barriers, that were paid at least $343 million in contracts by Transport for NSW.

While he never kept a record of the amount he received from Chellew, Liu said he believed his kickbacks totalled about $110,000, although he suspected it could have been as much as $140,000.

He said he met Chellew about five times to receive cash kickbacks, and that the deal between the three of them only ended in July 2023, when he was promoted at Transport for NSW.

However, Liu confirmed that a separate deal he had with Chellew – in which he received kickbacks running into the tens of thousands of dollars – continued into 2024.

Phone messages between Chellew and Liu were shown to the inquiry detailing the payment of kickbacks under their so-called truck arrangement.

“OK Tuesday I bring 12k,” Chellew texted Liu in April last year.

Lui said he told Chellew not to tell Helmy about their separate arrangement because he was concerned his workmate might “want to push me to … do more”.

Helmy, 38, is accused of pocketing $11.5 million in kickbacks – including bundles of cash, gold bullion and cryptocurrency – over 15 years from nine contractors in return for them being awarded work. He failed to appear before the ICAC in May and, since then, has been on the run from police.

Liu this week told the inquiry that Helmy convinced him to become involved in the arrangement with Protection Barriers, recalling that his workmate joked that he should “get on the bandwagon”.

On Thursday, Liu said that his wife and mother both had major health problems at the time, and that he had borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars from workmates to help pay off debt owed to a loan shark. He did concede that those personal problems were not an excuse for his actions.

ICAC counsel assisting Rob Ranken, SC, suggested to Liu that for the most part it was him who was reaching out to Chellew for kickbacks for the trucks. Lui accepted that proposition and that he could easily have ended their arrangement.

Whistleblower Adele Graham also told the inquiry on Thursday that she decided to report Helmy to Transport for NSW’s “speak up hotline” in July 2023 because she believed there were issues that needed investigation including clear breaches of internal procedures. “It took a lot of courage just to ring this number,” she recalled.

In a transcript of her call, she said she wanted to report Helmy for influencing the outcome of tenders to companies, and that she felt he was trying to influence what she did in her job.

But after phoning the hotline, Graham said she did not have any confidence in the person who answered her call.

While she had made the complaint on an anonymous basis, she believed that emails and documents that she had provided to Transport for NSW would have made it been clear to anyone reading them who the complainant was.

Graham said she had expected the names on the emails to later prompt the agency’s fraud and investigation unit to contact her, but that did not happen.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.