Gerald Giam

Proactively preventing scams

The Online Criminal Harms Bill (“the Bill”) was introduced for the purpose of empowering the authorities to combat online crimes more effectively, and safeguard the public in Singapore from various online harms. It is also supposed to enable swift government action against online criminal activities, proactively preventing scams and malicious cyber activities to protect potential victims.

Scams are the online criminal activities that loom largest against Singaporeans these days. While I support the Bill, I would like to seek clarification on how the Bill will be able to empower the authorities to deal with scams in ways that existing legislation does not.

According to data from the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the victims of some 31,700 scam cases were cheated of almost $661 million in 2022 — $29 million more than the year before. This works out to an average of almost $21,000 cheated per case. These are staggering amounts of hard earned savings of Singaporeans lost to scammers. Quite a few victims are my residents who approached me for help to recover their lost savings. Sadly, in most cases, the money had been spirited overseas and could not be recovered.

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and police currently work with Internet service providers to block scam websites. In 2021, 12,000 suspected scam websites were blocked, many with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that can quickly detect and block scam websites. This means that if a new phishing website was set up to collect usernames and passwords of bank customers, the Government is already empowered to immediately order that website to be blocked, so that no more users in Singapore can access it. What difficulties have the authorities faced in expeditiously blocking actual scam websites, that necessitates the introduction of this Bill?

I note the Minister’s explanation in her speech just a moment ago that this Bill will enable the authorities to block websites if there is reasonable suspicion that they are being prepared in advance of a scam. Can I confirm that this means if someone were to register a domain name that is a variant of, say dbs.com, it will get proactively blocked, even if the website does not contain any content yet and even if that domain is registered overseas?

Similarly, if a telephone number is reported to have been used to carry out scams, is the Government already empowered to direct telcos to immediately block such numbers? Are there any encumbrances to doing so now that require this Bill?

The Minister previously said that scam calls made over the Internet, such as through messaging apps like WhatsApp, are currently not blocked. With this Bill, would scam calls made over the internet now be blocked through an Account Restriction Direction that can be issued to Online Service Providers?

Will SMS redirection attacks, which redirect text messages containing OTPs sent from banks to hackers, be more effectively blocked under this Bill, and if so how will it be more effectively prevented than under the current regime?

The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and Open Government Products has developed ScamShield, an anti-scam app which automatically blocks scam calls, detects scam messages and allows users to report scam messages and calls. I’m glad to note that a version of ScamShield for Android devices has finally been released. However, in order for SMSes from known scam numbers to be blocked, a user will need to install the ScamShield app and give the app permissions to read their SMS and contacts. This is a multi-step process, which some non-technical users may struggle with. Indeed, even technical users may be reluctant to grant such intrusive access on their phones.

The NCPC says that more than 600,000 people have downloaded the ScamShield app. This means more than 5 million residents in Singapore still do not have ScamShield installed, and presumably more do not have the app setup to block scam messages. To better protect potential victims of scams who are unaware of ScamShield or choose not to install the app on their phones, the Government should direct telcos to block all verified scam messages and calls, without depending on end users to install ScamShield. These should include those scam phone numbers reported by end users through ScamShield and verified by the NCPC and the police. Time is of the essence, since it only takes seconds for an unwitting victim to click on a phishing link and enter their username, password and OTP, and for the scammers to clear out their bank account or CPF accounts.

While the ScamShield app, ScamShield bot and website do provide forms for people to report suspected scams, how many people are aware of these reporting channels and actually use them? How does the Government intend to promote its use? How will they encourage their use and explain it to those who find it challenging with adopting such technology?

The ScamShield bot is able to take in reports of scam messages in non-English languages, but can only reply to users in English. Are there plans to enable it to reply in Chinese, Malay and Tamil, so that more non-English speakers can interact with the bot?

More should be done to leverage the knowledge of the entire population to more quickly and comprehensively identify scams, and block scam numbers before more people fall victim to them. This can be done through better publicity of these reporting channels, giving updates to users when their reports were used for police investigations or when the number is blocked, and making it easier for users to report scams.

The scam epidemic is a gargantuan problem which needs to be tackled more effectively by the Government, telcos and financial institutions. I hope that this Bill will give these agencies and organisations more levers to do so, to prevent more Singaporeans from falling victim and losing their hard earned savings to these criminals.

This is a speech I delivered during the debate on the Online Criminal Harms Bill on 5 July 2023 in Parliament.

Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash

Developing High Performance Sports in Singapore

I extend my heartiest congratulations to Team Singapore athletes and para-athletes who have qualified for, participated in and, for some, won medals at the recent SEA Games and ASEAN Para Games in Cambodia. These include Aljunied GRC residents Kimberly Ong, Colin Soon, Sophie Soon and Soh Rui Yong. You have done your family, the sports fraternity and your country proud by flying the Singapore flag high on the world stage. I also wish all our Asian Games athletes and para-athletes the best of success in their preparations and competitions at the upcoming Asian Games and Asian Para Games in October.

My speech today will focus on the development of high performance athletes in Singapore. I will delve into some of the challenges faced in the local sports ecosystem and will propose several ideas that I believe will enable Singapore to achieve greater success in the international sporting arena.

Before I continue, I wish to declare my interest in this matter as a parent with a child who trains in a high performance sports programme supported by Sport Singapore.

Most of us would be familiar with the 10,000 hours rule. It is a concept proposed by Dr Anders Ericsson and popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book “Outliers: The Story of Success”. The rule suggests that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve mastery in a particular field or skill. To clock 10,000 hours, an athlete would need to put in three hours of practice a day, six days a week, continuously for over 10 years. Going by this rule, if an athlete aims to be world class by the age of 18, they would need to start serious training when they are just eight years old. This does not even take into account the quality of their training and their innate talent, which are important factors in their future success.

In fact, many world class athletes today started training in a high performance environment from as young as the age of five. Many were handpicked while they were still learning to walk, often by their own parents. In his autobiography, “Black and White”, Richard Williams described how he came up with a plan to train his two daughters to become tennis champions before they were even born. We all know how successful Venus and Serena Williams became. There are also many other instances of fraught relationships between parents and their child athletes — even to the point of abuse — and I am not suggesting that Richard Williams’ approach is right for every athlete. However, this is the nature of the international competition our young athletes are up against.

For most sports, in order to become a world class athlete, the period of very high intensity training often starts from the age of 12. This coincides with the time Singaporean students are the busiest preparing for their PSLE, O level and A level exams.

Training for just a few hours a week with a school CCA sports team is not high performance training, and this pace of training will generally limit the student’s success in the sport to inter-school sports competitions. High performance athletes are generally expected to put in between 12 to 30 hours of high intensity training each week — with the number of hours increasing with age. One local National Sports Association (NSA) provides a training volume guideline of 28 hours a week and 27 tournaments a year for 16-year old male athletes in that sport. Athletes need to travel overseas — usually during the school term — to take part in tournaments, which are necessary for gaining competition experience and earning ranking points. It is extremely challenging for a secondary school student in a mainstream local school to balance this heavy load of training, travel and competition with their studies, without burning themselves out physically, mentally and emotionally.

An exception is found in the Singapore Sports School, where academic schedules are customised to accommodate the student-athlete’s training and competition commitments. The Hon. Member Poh Lee San shared about this earlier too. The Sports School has produced some very successful graduates, including badminton player Loh Kean Yew and table tennis player Clarence Chew, who have won gold for our nation in international competitions.

Sports and studies

This leads me to my next point: The Singaporean outlook towards the nexus of sports and studies. In Singapore, the well-established route for a young individual to achieve a comfortable income and provide for their family involves completing their education, graduating from either a polytechnic or university, and securing a professional position, preferably in a bank, tech company or law firm.

Becoming a professional athlete, on the other hand, is probably one of the most difficult paths a Singaporean can choose. It is not a ticket out of poverty in Singapore, as it is in some countries. Even if we look at some of the highest paying sports like golf and tennis, only the athletes ranked in the top 150 or so in the world rankings earn enough prize money to support themselves. Those outside these rankings may struggle to even cover their expenses, which include travel, accommodation, coaching and physiotherapy fees. In lower paying sports, athletes must depend on salaries paid by their clubs or NSAs to cover their expenses. It is a tough life!

Despite the desire for sports champions in Singapore, pragmatism often leads parents to view pursuing a professional sports career as impractical for their children. Consequently, many talented student-athletes choose to enter top mainstream secondary schools through the Direct School Admission (DSA) programme rather than attending the specialised Singapore Sports School. This is despite the fact that the latter offers a more favourable environment for balancing both sports and studies.

However, student-athletes enrolled in mainstream schools encounter constraints when compared to their peers at the Sports School. The fixed timetables in mainstream schools do not cater specifically to athletes, making it difficult for them to undergo long hours of training and overseas competition. While some mainstream schools offer limited flexibility on an individual basis, such as permitting athletes to skip a week of school for international competitions, the time away from lessons eventually takes a toll on their studies. With this reality in play, we should not be surprised that we continue to have a narrow pipeline of world-class athletes.

The academics-first approach is one that most Singaporeans have chosen over the years, and will continue to choose in the years to come. Given that many high performance athletes are of school-going age, if nothing is done to shift the youth sports development paradigm, we will continue to see many budding sports stars eventually fizzle out after they complete secondary school.

How do we shift this paradigm? I would like to offer some suggestions for MCCY, Sport SG, NSAs, coaches, schools, parents and student-athletes to consider.

Suggestion 1: Explore the “college pathway”

First, given how important academics are to Singaporeans, it is not fruitful to try to persuade them to choose sports over studies. We should therefore explore pathways that allow student-athletes to pursue both their studies and sports at the highest level. This is possible through what is known as the “college pathway”.

Most universities in the United States are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). There are three divisions in these sports. The top tier — known as Division 1 — runs inter-collegiate championships in 13 male and 13 female sports, including swimming, soccer, track and field, tennis, golf, water polo, field hockey, basketball, volleyball and diving. Many of these are popular sports in Singapore, which our athletes compete in during major games like the SEA Games, Asian Games and the Olympics.

College sports is huge in the US and has a television audience comparable to the top professional sports teams. This popularity attracts commercial sponsors and television licensing rights, and is a huge revenue-earner for some universities, to the tune of some US$30 million a year. The quality of college sports in the US is so high that many of the best junior athletes from all over the world, including Europe, Australia and China, vie for the opportunity to study in these universities on full athletic scholarships while competing in their sport. Many of these universities have students that win more international championships than many small nations. The University of Southern California (USC), for example, had 65 past, present or incoming student-athletes competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, compared to 23 from Singapore. USC athletes collectively won 11 gold medals in those Games.

Many of the top performing universities in inter-collegiate sports are also top ranked academic institutions. They include Stanford, UC Berkeley, Duke, University of Michigan, UCLA and USC. Harvard, Princeton, UPenn and other Ivy League universities are also NCAA Division 1 members. In fact, the Ivy League is a collegiate athletic conference comprising eight schools in northeastern US, although it is more commonly used to refer to academically elite American universities.

Division 1 athletes are sometimes offered “full ride” athletic scholarships. These can cover tuition fees, housing, meals, transport, apparel, equipment, coaching, sports science expertise and even academic tutoring for the athletes.

By pursuing the college pathway, more Singaporean student-athletes can have the opportunity to benefit from the best of both worlds — a top quality university education and elite level competition in their sport. College sports can be a springboard to the professional leagues after graduation. Several Singaporeans who competed for US colleges returned to represent Singapore in major games. These include swimmer Joseph Schooling (who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin), golfer Hailey Loh (who studies at California Baptist University) and our Parliamentary colleague, the Hon. Nominated Member Mark Chay (who graduated from Brigham Young University).

Even for those who do not ultimately make it into an American university, the disciplined focus on both academics and sports through their secondary school years will better prepare student-athletes to enter our local polytechnics and universities. Athletes are also much sought after by many companies after they graduate, because many employers recognise that athletes’ discipline, drive and good time management skills are among the many valuable skills that they bring to the workplace.

Despite the attractiveness of the college pathway, there appears to be a lack of awareness about it among many student-athletes and their parents about the steps they need to take to pursue it. Sport SG, NSAs, sports academies, schools and coaches should conduct more sharing sessions and provide more guidance for athletes and their parents on the college pathway. This will allow parents and athletes to make considered plans in developing their proficiency at their sport. The college pathway could provide a stronger pipeline of athletes in several sports that Singapore has the potential to excel in at major games.

Suggestion 2: Expand the Singapore Sports School

My second suggestion is that the Singapore Sports School should expand its enrolment of students beyond the nine “academy sports”, and provide a study-and-train environment for more student-athletes who can demonstrate their interest and potential to compete at an international level in their sport.

To make this successful, the Sports School and Sport SG need to better market the benefits of their sports and academic programmes to prospective students. The Sports School can arrange more sharing sessions at the various Primary Schools nationwide, in addition to the existing Sports School Open house. It could also invite the high performing athletes in primary school for holiday camps at the Sports School during the school holidays. These will enable the young athletes and parents to better understand and familiarise themselves with the Sports School. The Sports School will then be better able to attract a critical mass of students in each sport that will in turn make the school more attractive to prospective students.

Suggestion 3: Increase media coverage of local sports

Third, to spur interest in sports, the local media should play a bigger role in featuring local athletes in international competitions. When Singaporeans turn on their televisions to watch sports, they seldom see their compatriots competing. In fact, it is so rare to see Singaporeans in world class sports competitions, that when it does happen — like when Loh Kean Yew won the badminton world championships in 2021 — many of us will specially tune in to watch them. Unfortunately in the case of Kean Yew’s amazing win, it was so unexpected that even our public broadcaster did not make preparations to broadcast the finals match live to Singaporeans.

Matches featuring local athletes in the advanced stages of international competitions should be telecast live on free-to-air television or live-streamed online. During major games, all the matches and races where Team Singapore athletes are competing in should be uploaded to an online video platform like meWatch or YouTube. There shouldn’t just be a daily highlights programme which features a few athletes in action.

The media features could include interviews with high performance athletes sharing their insights about their day-to-day schedules and training. All this will spark interest in the various sports among athletes, fans and commercial sponsors.

Suggestion 4: Parents as enablers

My fourth and final suggestion is to parents of athletes and athletes themselves. Parents have an outsize influence on their children’s sporting ambitions and progress, from a very young age through their growing years. If you are a parent of a talented and athletic youngster, do take the time to listen to and understand your child’s motivations and dreams. Assess whether they truly love their sport and don’t push them to excel in a sport just to “DSA” into a good school or — worse — live your own dreams vicariously through them. I say this as a reminder to myself too!

Most athletes will only have the intrinsic motivation to push themselves to reach the pinnacle of their arena if they genuinely enjoy participating in the sport. Your child must also know that you love them regardless of their results on the field.

If your child has aspirations to become a world-class athlete, encourage them to pursue their dreams, take the time to find out the available pathways and support them within your means. The path will be less well-trodden than the ones most of their peers are taking, and there is no guarantee of success. It is therefore important to focus on enjoying the journey, not just the destination.

Conclusion

Sport has the potential to rally our nation together behind a common cause. When Singaporeans cheer in support of our sportsmen and women, listen to Majulah Singapura playing at the podium, or see Singaporean athletes giving their all on the field, in the pool or on the court, we all feel an immense rush of pride in our nation.

Yet for a nation as wealthy and diverse as Singapore is, our record of performance in sports on the world stage leaves much to be desired. I have outlined four suggestions aimed at improving Singapore’s sporting ecosystem to build a stronger and more sustainable pipeline of high-performance athletes in Singapore. This will help us take steps towards realising our goals for sporting success over the coming decade, and for decades to come.

I strongly support the Motion standing in the names of my Hon. Friends Assoc Prof Jamus Lim and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap.

This was my speech on the Motion on Sporting Success in Parliament on 6 July 2023.

Parliamentary Questions on 26 and 31 Ridout Road

Parliament sits on 3 July and I have filed two questions for the Minister for Law related to the controversy surrounding the rental of properties on Ridout Road:

Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied GRC): To ask the Minister for Law whether the Government has plans to redevelop more of the land that is currently occupied by black and white colonial bungalows for more productive uses like public housing, industry or commerce.

Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied GRC): To ask the Minister for Law (a) whether the bidding process of black and white bungalows managed by SLA is audited by the AGO annually; (b) if not, in which year was the latest audit conducted; (c) what sampling methodology was used for the latest audit conducted; and (d) whether bids by Government officials, Members of Parliament and related parties are always included as part of this sample.

Other Workers’ Party MPs have also filed questions for the Minister. They can be found on the Order Paper.

There will be four Ministerial Statements delivered, after which MPs may ask for clarifications. These Ministerial Statements will likely be made after Question Time, which ends at 12.30pm on Monday 3 July. The full Parliament proceedings can be watched live on YouTube (search “Parliament Sitting 3 July 2023”).

Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash

Increase in NS allowance

On 22 Feb 2023, I asked the Minister for Defence in Parliament whether MINDEF had considered raising the allowances for full-time National Servicemen (NSFs) in view of inflationary pressures and increases in the cost of living. In his reply, Senior Minister of State for Defence Heng Chee How stated that NSFs receive an allowance to support their basic personal upkeep and that MINDEF regularly reviews and adjusts the allowance.

I pressed further, asking if NS allowances could be pegged to inflation, so as to minimise the lag between increases in the cost of living and adjustments in pay. I also asked for the next review of NS allowances to be brought forward in view of the high and persistent inflation Singapore is facing. SMS Heng replied that when the Government calibrates NS allowances, they certainly will have to monitor the overall price levels within the country.

Yesterday (29 May), MINDEF announced that from 1 July 2023, all national servicemen in the Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore Police Force and Singapore Civil Defence Force will receive NS allowance increases of up to $200. This is welcome news for the tens of thousands of NSFs who are supporting and defending the Constitution, preserving and protecting the honour and independence of our country, upholding the law, and protecting and saving lives.

Photo by Bao Menglong on Unsplash

Tackling the healthcare manpower crunch and using healthcare technology

The world is facing a severe manpower crunch in health and social care. The CEO of the International Council of Nurses (ICN) said last year that “the scale of the worldwide nursing shortage is one of the greatest threats to health globally.” The ICN estimates that due to existing nursing shortages, the ageing of the nursing workforce and the effect of COVID-19, up to 13 million nurses will be needed to fill the global nurse shortage gap in the future. The Southeast Asia region alone is facing a shortfall of 1.9 million nurses, according to the World Health Organization.

Singapore needs another 24,000 nurses, allied health professionals and support care staff to operate hospitals, clinics and eldercare centres by 2030. Our rapidly ageing population is causing demand for health and social care to increase dramatically. Yet Singapore is facing a high attrition rate of nurses. One of the reasons why nurses in Singapore have reported to be resigning is because of their heavy workload and stress, which is caused in large part by the manpower shortage.

Boosting local healthcare manpower

Urgent measures are needed to address this manpower shortage. There are no quick fix solutions. We need to encourage more Singaporeans to choose health and social care as a career so as to boost the pipeline of future professionals in this field.

I highlighted in my speech on Singapore’s COVID-19 response in March that nurses in Singapore are often still seen as the assistants to doctors instead of being professionals in their own right. We need to boost the image of the profession and enhance societal esteem for nurses and allied healthcare workers. Nurses should be granted more autonomy and entrusted with higher level responsibilities.

Schools should highlight careers in health and social care early to students. Professional associations should come up with materials and videos highlighting the careers in this field and share these with schools to disseminate to their students. I agree with Dr Tan Yia Swam’s call just now for a repository of articles on navigating the healthcare system — and I hope she starts her blog again so that we can continue to tap on her knowledge. Career guidance should start early in secondary one. This is so that students’ interest in health and social care careers can be sparked early and they can start working towards choosing suitable subjects as they move up to secondary three.

As I mentioned in my speech on the education system in April, schools should move away from sorting students according to their grades and towards allowing students to take subject combinations based on their interests. This is how we can continue to raise up a generation of future healthcare professionals who love what they do and are passionate about their work.

IHLs (institutes of higher learning) could develop guidebooks to help local students prepare themselves for their eventual applications to these institutions. These guidebooks could include information on the subjects they need to take in school, the grades they need to obtain, and the co-curricular and extracurricular activities they need to get involved in to best prepare themselves to get admitted to the institution and major of their choice. For example, this guide could recommend that students take certain subject combinations, join the science club, find opportunities to conduct scientific research, write and publish research papers, or work as an intern in a health or social care institution during their school holidays.

It should provide guidance on how to search out these opportunities and work with professional health and social care associations to create these opportunities for students. These could all help our students focus early on pursuing their area of interest in health and social care and better prepare them for their eventual careers in this exciting field. It is too late to attempt to put together a portfolio just before applying for university or polytechnic. Yet this is often what many students do, because they go through secondary school with little idea of what they are interested in, and do not participate in activities that prepare them for their future careers.

Students from more well-resourced families, on the other hand, often obtain this guidance from their parents and are provided with opportunities for hands-on experience through their parents’ professional connections. In order to level up our society and capture a wider pool of talent in our population, we need to make this information available to every student.

However, changing public perceptions and increasing public awareness about health and social care careers takes time and requires a concerted effort from various stakeholders, including the government, the media, schools and parents. We must continue to develop targeted initiatives to address the concerns of healthcare workers, such as work-life balance, remuneration and career progression.

Technology as a force multiplier in healthcare

Having said all this, it is simply not sustainable to rely on increasing manpower supply alone to meet the health and social care needs of our nation. Considering our own ageing population in Singapore, which will require greater care needs, if we are to staff all our health and social care institutions with the doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and care workers to meet the ideal healthcare worker-to-patient ratios, the health and social care sector will likely take up a disproportionate share of Singapore’s manpower and will starve other sectors of the economy of skills and talent.

Technology can play an important role in boosting productivity and augmenting manpower. In my adjournment motion in this House in 2013 on easing the cost of healthcare, I said that technology should be used as a force multiplier in the face of limited manpower in our healthcare system. This is even more so now than it was a decade ago.

Healthcare technology — or HealthTech — is a fast-growing and promising field which must be developed further in Singapore. Transformational technologies are being developed now which will revolutionise the way healthcare is delivered in the future. These include artificial intelligence-driven diagnostics that can detect diseases early and make more accurate diagnoses more quickly than conventional means. For example, researchers at MIT have developed an AI model called Sybil that can predict a patient’s risk of lung cancer within six years using low-dose CT scans.

The emerging field of precision medicine has the potential to transform healthcare and is being used in the treatment of diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases and genetic disorders. It can potentially improve patient outcomes by providing more targeted and effective treatments, reducing adverse reactions to medications, and optimising disease prevention strategies. I note that there is now a Singapore Precision Medicine initiative aiming to generate precision medicine data of up to one million individuals, integrating genomic, lifestyle, health, social and environmental data. This is a very positive development.

There are also other healthcare technologies that are not as “deep tech” as what I mentioned earlier but are already in the market and can provide a boost to the productivity of healthcare workers, enhance the patient experience and improve health outcomes.

The National Electronic Health Records (NEHR) system is a major, multi-year HealthTech initiative. According to the MOH website, there are 2,231 healthcare institutions participating in the NEHR as of 5 May 2023. This list appears to be growing every day and I note there has been a marked increase in the number of participating healthcare providers since the start of this year.

The Straits Times reported on 2 May that the “private sector has been slow to participate in the NEHR since it was launched in 2011”. According to a PQ reply by Minister Ong Ye Kung to Mr Leon Perera in March 2023, only about 30% of licensed private ambulatory care institutions have view-access to the NEHR and less than 4% are contributing data.

A 2020 survey and paper by Clinical Asst Prof See Qin Yong of Changi General Hospital entitled “Attitudes and Perceptions of General Practitioners towards the NEHR in Singapore” found that solo-practising GPs who were more than 40 years old and who had practised for more than 15 years were less likely to view and contribute data onto NEHR. Doctors who regarded themselves as less computer savvy and those who perceived that an inadequate level of technical or financial support was available were also less likely to use the NEHR.

The Health Information Bill was supposed to be tabled in Parliament in 2018 to make the contribution of data to the NEHR mandatory for licensed healthcare groups after a grace period. However, this was deferred in the wake of the cyberattack and data breach of SingHealth systems in July that year, in order for technical and process enhancements to improve the security posture of the NEHR to be implemented first. Most of these security enhancements were supposed to be completed by last year, according to SMS (Health) Janil Puthucheary.

Can I ask the SMS if all the security enhancements to the NEHR have now been implemented? I understand that MOH aims to table the Health Information Bill in the second half of this year. Is MOH reaching out to doctors to address concerns they might have about the security of the patient data they will be required to contribute to the NEHR? How is MOH assisting the remaining GPs and dentists to get on board the NEHR?

Former Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said in 2017 that “patients can realise the full potential of the NEHR only if the data is comprehensive”. He added that “for NEHR data to be comprehensive, every provider and healthcare professional needs to contribute relevant data to it.”

Given the NEHR’s goals and the fact that $660 million has been spent on the system so far, it is imperative that the full roll-out is implemented without undue delay, while addressing the valid concerns of doctors.

We need to tap on the knowledge and experience of GPs who have been practising for many years, especially as we move forward into the Healthier SG initiative, which will see GPs playing a key role in promoting healthy lifestyles and providing preventive healthcare.

Technology can be used to help GPs focus on what they do best. Many private clinics find it a challenge to manage the dizzying array of IT systems that they need to manage their clinics, and connect to CHAS (Community Health Assist Scheme), Healthier SG and the NEHR. I note that there is a technology subsidy scheme available to help GPs to implement Clinic Management Systems that are compatible with Healthier SG. However, implementing these systems still requires a lot of time and effort on the part of GPs and their clinic assistants — time which they simply do not have, if they want to focus on direct patient care.

MOH should explore the possibility of offering and financing an “IT manager-as-a-service” to GPs and dental clinics. This would enable them to benefit from the expertise of IT professionals, who can assist them in resolving their healthcare IT-related issues. By providing a point of contact for IT matters, GPs and their clinic assistants can then concentrate on delivering high-quality clinical care to their patients. This solution would not only enhance the efficiency and productivity of GP clinics but also help them stay current with the latest technological advancements.

Conclusion

Urgent action is needed to tackle the shortage of manpower in health and social care institutions and grow the pipeline of Singaporeans entering this field. I have proposed some ways in my speech on how we can do so and I hope that MOH and MOE will consider them.

To boost productivity and augment manpower in the health and social care sector, we need to double down on the use of technology as a force multiplier, and assist providers to implement and use these technologies.

The world celebrates International Nurses Day this Friday May 12, which is the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. I would like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to all our nurses in both public and private healthcare institutions in Singapore. We appreciate your selfless service, sacrifice and care for our people!

This was a speech I delivered in Parliament on 9 May 2023 during the debate on Supporting Healthcare.

Reforming our education system

Mr Speaker,

In her address to Parliament, the President called for a “broader and more open meritocracy that works well for all Singaporeans”. A lynchpin of our system of meritocracy is our education system, which is the subject of my speech today.

Education and Examinations

Singapore’s education system has gone through several changes over the years, from the introduction of streaming in 1981, to the introduction of Subject-based Banding (SBB) in 2014, to the roll out of Full SBB starting in 2020. Yet even with these changes, one major feature of our education system remains central: Examinations.

As a parent of two children who have gone through the PSLE and are now in secondary school, I am rather familiar with both the joy and — more often — the frustration that parents go through when helping their children through major national exams.

Tutoring my own children has also provided me insights into the academic curriculum and its continued focus on exams. I recall spending an inordinate amount of time working with my children through assessment books and past exam papers. I would often have to peek at the answer sheets behind, so I could teach them how to answer science questions with just the right number of points — while putting up with taunts by my own offspring which went along the lines of, “See, you also don’t know!”

I would also have to repeatedly drill my children on maths problem sums. To get a good pass in Singapore’s exams, students need to not just answer questions correctly, but also quickly, or risk the “horror” of having many unanswered questions at the end of the paper, due to exam time limits.

Many mid-year exams have been done away with, but these have been replaced with weighted assessments which occur throughout the school year. The major national exams like the PSLE, N levels, O levels or A levels always loom just around the corner. Perform poorly in any of these exams, and the student will find their future educational options narrowed down or delayed — a prospect that many students and parents fear, no matter what the Government says about the many pathways to success.

There are positive effects of exams: They can incentivise teachers to cover their subjects more thoroughly, a skill which our local educators excel in. Exams motivate students to work harder to gain a sense of accomplishment.

However, there are also negative effects of exams. They can motivate students to aim for test mastery, instead of subject mastery. Tests encourage teachers to narrow the curriculum and lose instructional time, which could lead to “teaching to the test”.

Exams typically assess only certain aspects of a learner’s knowledge, potentially overlooking other facets of their education. Exam outcomes may not be definitive since they are solely based on a student’s performance on the exam day. If a student is unwell or performs poorly under stress, it could adversely affect their exam results and their scores may not be an accurate reflection of their grasp of the subject matter. If the student fails to achieve their desired exam results, they will have to settle for courses of study in secondary schools or tertiary institutions that they may not be so inclined towards.

National exams induce tremendous amounts of stress on students, as they determine their future educational pathways and, consequently, their future careers and earning potential. While it can be argued that it is good for young people to learn to cope with stress, when stress becomes toxic, it can have negative effects on learning and knowledge retention and, in extreme situations, could become chronic.

By channelling their energies into preparing for exams, students may forgo opportunities to experience the joy of learning and achieving mastery in what is really important for life.

The streaming approach put students through a standardised test like the PSLE, sorted them into good, average and weak students, and put them on different education streams in secondary school with different subject combinations based on their test scores. The new subject-based banding approach also sorts students into good, average and weak students for each subject, and channels them into subject combinations based on their assessed ability in each subject.

While subject-based banding is less rigid than streaming, it is still based on the same principle: A student has to meet a specific test score in order to study the subjects they are interested in.

The ostensible reason for implementing this sorting mechanism is to provide some assurance that the student can cope with the rigours of that subject or subject level before being allowed to take it, so that they do not drop out of school. This is probably why through-train programmes are currently available mainly to an elite few students who qualify for the Integrated Programme by virtue of their stellar performance in the PSLE. There is little risk that these students will become early school drop-outs.

In contrast, the Workers’ Party has proposed a 10-year through-train programme from Primary 1 to Secondary 4 as an option for parents who want their child to bypass the PSLE. Our proposed through-train programme gives students 10 years to prepare for their first major exam at Secondary 4, allowing them to learn at a pace best-suited for them, while developing other areas of interest. The 10-year through-train programme will pair up existing primary and secondary schools and complement, but not replace, the non-through train tracks in these schools. My Hon. Friend, Assoc Prof Jamus Lim, elaborated on this proposal in detail during the Committee of Supply debate earlier this year.

We need to make our education system less of a sorting mechanism for identifying students’ abilities and more of a launchpad for students to discover their strengths and interests, and develop deep skills in their areas of interest.

Students should not be channelled away from their interests just because they did not obtain a certain cut-off point in their exams. There might be concerns that some so-called “kiasu parents” will push their children to take subjects that are far beyond their abilities. However, I believe that most Singaporean students and their parents are keenly aware of their own limitations and will not bite off more than they can chew. After all, if a student takes a subject at too challenging a level, they will have difficulty scoring the much coveted A1’s in national exams.

Financial literacy

I would like to move on to another aspect of education which needs more focus in Singapore — financial literacy.

Singapore is a major financial hub, with numerous global, regional and local institutional investors and high-net-worth family offices based here. Billions of investment funds are raised and managed in Singapore.

Yet, Singaporeans generally lack the financial know-how and confidence to manage their own personal finances and plan for their future. In a private sector survey in 2022, more than half of Singaporeans considered themselves “financially illiterate”. The same survey showed that financial literacy is the lowest among the age group of 18 to 24, at only 35%. In the MoneySense National Financial Capability Survey 2021, four in 10 respondents said they lacked knowledge of basic financial concepts such as risk diversification and simple and compound interest, and more than half had not developed a retirement plan.

MoneySense is Singapore’s national financial education programme. In the two decades since it was started, it has launched various programmes and provided resources to help Singaporeans manage their finances better. However, the programmes seem to be mostly ad-hoc and campaign driven. Various surveys have been conducted on financial literacy among Singaporeans since its launch, but it is not clear how much the financial literacy of Singaporeans has improved over the last two decades, as these surveys do not seem to have followed the same scope or framework.

Based on the results of the recent surveys, it appears that a lot more needs to be done to enhance Singaporeans’ financial capacity and literacy. And instead of doing more, it appears that some co-funding of financial literacy workshops for schools under MoneySense has been discontinued.

For a developed country, with such high educational, wealth and income levels, and an established status as a leading international financial hub, the survey results show worrying statistics about the financial literacy rate in Singapore.

To improve our financial resilience as a nation, there is a need to plug the current financial literacy gap among Singaporeans and empower Singaporeans with the knowledge and confidence to take greater ownership of their financial well-being.

I would like to share three suggestions to systematically uplift the financial literacy of Singaporeans, and empower them with the knowledge and confidence to manage their own financial health.

First of all, I would like to suggest that the Government develop a National Financial Literacy Framework, to provide a systematic basis for benchmarking improvements in financial literacy levels over time. In the Financial Literacy Survey conducted by the MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) in 2005, a scoring system was mooted, covering both knowledge and action. However, it appears that the scoring system was discontinued in subsequent surveys. Aggregate financial literacy statistics of Singaporeans should be established, measured and tracked as part of ascertaining Singapore’s financial resilience.

Second, I would like to suggest that the Government establish a National Financial Education Programme, under the Ministry of Education, to provide proactive and comprehensive financial education for Singaporeans across all ages.

I note that the Minister for Education had mentioned previously that financial literacy is infused into subjects such as Character and Citizenship Education (CCE), and that the Student Learning Space provides self-paced lessons for students to learn financial literacy. However, I believe financial literacy is such a critical subject matter that we should not adopt a “by-the-way” approach.

Instead, we should equip Singaporeans across all ages with deeper financial knowledge and confidence. This should include not just MoneySense’s Tier 1 knowledge of “basic money management”, but should also aim to significantly improve Singaporeans’ financial capacity in Tier 2 — “financial planning” — and Tier 3 — “investment know-how”.

Financial literacy should be included as a standalone subject taught in schools, as good financial habits need to start from young. It does not need to be an examinable subject. Financial literacy clubs can be included as a co-curricular activity across all schools. These clubs can also be set up at all community and SAFRA clubs, with structured activities.

Third, the concentration of household wealth in residential property assets needs to be addressed, to give Singaporeans the financial freedom to explore other asset classes for their retirement planning, in order to achieve better diversification and improve returns on their assets.

According to the Department of Statistics, almost half of Singapore’s household wealth is in residential property assets. A DBS report has indicated that property will no longer be the best retirement investment in Singapore in the future. Having half of Singaporeans’ wealth in a single, relatively illiquid asset is a financial risk. Contrary to the common perception, other asset classes have also generated returns comparable to Singapore residential real estate, even in the Singapore property boom period, especially after factoring in costs relating to holding and transacting properties.

As I had mentioned in my speech on the Motions on Public Housing in February, we need to moderate the growth in housing prices and ensure they do not outpace Singapore’s economic growth. It is unlikely that Singapore’s economic growth will be anywhere close to what was achieved in the past few decades. Therefore, it is also unlikely that, moving forward, Singaporeans’ residential property assets can deliver a level of returns similar to what was previously achieved, without causing undue inflationary pressures.

Equipping Singaporeans with better financial literacy will help them become willing to have a more diversified asset portfolio and make more sound decisions while doing so, taking into consideration their risk profile and circumstances. This could in turn better secure Singaporeans’ retirement adequacy.

Summary

Mr Speaker, in summary, our education system should provide more opportunities for our students to pursue their interests, as long as they have demonstrated their commitment and ability to complete their whole course of study. We need to move away from the over-emphasis on preparing for high stakes exams, and place greater focus on enjoying learning, and achieving subject and skills mastery.

Equipping Singaporeans with greater financial knowledge and confidence will enable them to take charge of their financial well-being, and make better-informed decisions on their personal finances. Strengthening Singaporeans’ financial resilience will also serve to enhance our overall resilience as a nation.

Finally, I would like to respond to what the Hon Member, Mr Murali Pillai, said in his speech earlier. Unanimous agreement on both sides of the House is not a prerequisite for national unity. Rational and responsible debate in Parliament that focuses on policies, not personalities, is the way to express our diverse views and improve our policies, with the objective of improving the lives of Singaporeans, while remaining united as one people.

Sir, I support the Motion.

______________

This was my speech in Parliament on the debate on the President’s Address (Motion of Thanks) on 17 April 2023

Rejection of vocational driver licence applications due to criminal records

Several of my constituents in Aljunied GRC have approached me to appeal to obtain vocational drivers’ licences to drive taxis or private hire vehicles, after serving their convictions for various offences. While the LTA website states that those who have committed rape, murder or kidnapping will not get a licence — which I think is a reasonable safeguard for passengers — the LTA is less specific about which other offences would debar them. This leaves aspiring taxi or private hire drivers who have committed non-violent offences unclear about whether they would be able to ferry passengers for a living. I sought clarity on this matter with the Minister for Transport. Read on for the answer and my supplementary questions.

==========

22 March 2023

REJECTION OF APPLICATIONS FOR VOCATIONAL DRIVERS’ LICENCES DUE TO CRIMINAL RECORD

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Transport in the last three years (a) how many applications for the (i) Taxi Driver’s Vocational Licence (ii) Private Hire Car Driver’s Vocational Licence (iii) Bus Driver’s Vocational Licence (iv) Bus Attendant’s Vocational Licence and (v) Omnibus Driver’s Vocational Licence were rejected due to the criminal record of the applicants for offences other than rape, murder or kidnapping respectively; and (b) of these, how many appeals were received and how many were approved upon appeal.

The Senior Minister of State for Transport (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for Transport): Of the more than 15,000 vocational licence or VL applications across the different services in 2022, 226 applications or about 1.5% were rejected due to criminal records, including murder, rape and kidnapping.

It is necessary for LTA to screen the VL applications to safeguard the interests of the commuting public. LTA may consider appeals from applicants with criminal records depending on the nature of the case. In 2022, 72 out of these 169 appeals were acceded to. LTA considers such appeals carefully to strike a balance between allowing applicants who committed less severe offences to take on driving as a vocation while safeguarding the safety of passengers.

Mr Speaker: Mr Gerald Giam.

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): I thank the Senior Minister of State for her reply. I understand that those who have committed offences like rape, murder and kidnapping will not get a licence. And I think that is a reasonable safeguard for passengers.

However, I have met residents who told me they cannot get back their vocational licence for past convictions for less violent or non-violent offences. This prevents them from earning a living and re-integrating into society.

So, can the Senior Minister of State please provide more clarity on what offences will debar a person from obtaining this licence? I think this will also give some clarity to the passengers to know that drivers who have gotten offences in the past will not be a safety threat to themselves.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: As the Member has rightly pointed out, we need to strike a balance, we need to maintain public confidence, especially for passengers conveyed in public service vehicles, like taxis and private hire cars (PHCs). Whilst we want to give the applicant who has had a criminal record before a second chance in taking up driving as a vocation, we also need to ensure that the interest and safety of commuters are safeguarded.

So, when we look at the applications, the Member has asked whether there are specific offences that we consider. Actually, criminal offences make up a large range. Besides murder, rape and kidnapping, there is a real wide range of such offences. We will consider them on a case-by-case basis because it is not just the severity of the offence, but also when the offence was committed and also any other mitigating factors like recalcitrance and so on.

So, when an appeal comes in, we will look at it on a case-by-case basis, based on its own merit and make an independent assessment.

Source: Parliament Hansard

Photo by Jeremy Kwok on Unsplash

#Parliament #WorkersParty #MakeYourVoteCount

Singapore’s Covid-19 Response

COVID-19 was the crisis of a generation. Our front liners, including nurses, doctors, cleaners and drivers, responded heroically in the face of an enemy that we knew little about before 2020. Words cannot repay the debt of gratitude we owe each one of them.

COVID-19 also took the lives of over 1,700 people in Singapore. I extend my deepest condolences to their families for their immeasurable loss.

While I acknowledge that the Government has performed well in many aspects of its response to this pandemic, it is important that we do not get carried away patting ourselves on the back to the exclusion of implementing the important lessons learned during this crisis. We need to better prepare ourselves for future pandemics, which are likely to be more frequent and severe, not least because of increasing globalisation and urbanisation.

Healthcare capacity

Healthcare capacity was stretched even before COVID-19 hit. The pandemic exacerbated this capacity crunch. Many healthcare workers reported working long hours overtime, being recalled for duty on their days off and even having no time for toilet breaks. The White Paper highlighted challenges in staffing hospitals with healthcare workers, resulting in existing workers feeling fatigued and burnt-out from the prolonged crisis.

We are now no longer fighting COVID-19 like before, yet the shortage of healthcare facilities and manpower still persists. For example, median waiting times for emergency cases that require hospital admission from January to September last year was about seven hours. This can spike to 50 hours during infection waves.

In October 2016, then-Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong launched the Healthcare Manpower Plan 2020, which highlighted the need for 30,000 more healthcare workers from 2015 to 2020 to look after Singapore’s fast-ageing population. It is now 2023. How many of these 30,000 additional healthcare positions have been filled? During the debate on the Healther SG motion last October, Minister Ong Ye Kung said that another 24,000 nurses, allied health professionals and support care staff are needed to operate hospitals, clinics and eldercare centres by 2030.

Recruitment alone is not sufficient. There needs to be a corresponding transformation in the remuneration of healthcare workers. The group that bore the heaviest burden of caring for COVID-19 patients were nurses. Their long working hours and lower starting pay compared to territories like Australia, Hong Kong and Canada, could have contributed to their high attrition in recent years. In 2021, the proportion of nurses resigning hit a five-year high, with 7.4% of local nurses and 14.8% of foreign nurses leaving their jobs.

Why are so many nurses leaving the healthcare sector? A study on healthcare workers conducted by researchers Celene Ting and others from the Saw Swee Hock School for Public Health, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the NCID highlighted that healthcare workers reported burn-out from being overworked, emotional exhaustion and at times feeling a lack of appreciation or support at work.

This was exacerbated by having to care for difficult and sometimes abusive patients. Nearly a third of healthcare workers witness or experience abuse each week, according to a tripartite workgroup’s findings, which SPS (Health) Rahayu Mazam shared earlier this month during the Committee of Supply debate.

Additionally, some healthcare workers are also drawn to work opportunities overseas, where they can receive higher remuneration and more societal recognition. For example, a nurse that CNA interviewed mentioned that after moving from Singapore to the United States, he felt more highly esteemed by the public, citing an example of how his car loan was approved immediately after he said he was a nurse, despite having no credit history.

Urgent changes are needed if we are to reverse the departure of nurses and boost their numbers in Singapore.

Nurses’ basic pay should be benchmarked to that of their contemporaries in other essential public services, a point made by Associate Professor Jeremy Lim from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health during a recent CNA interview. Such services could include the police, army and the education service. The salaries of nurses in other jurisdictions like Australia, Hong Kong and Canada should also be considered in the benchmarking.

It should take into account the longer hours that nurses have to work compared to many other professions. This is to ensure that the opportunity cost of taking up nursing instead of another profession would be minimised. We also need to make the nursing profession more highly esteemed by the general public.

Another way to attract more Singaporeans to take up nursing and increase retention would be to enhance their professional development opportunities. Nurses in Singapore are often still seen as the assistants to doctors instead of being professionals in their own right. They should instead be granted more autonomy and entrusted with higher level responsibilities. In the United Kingdom, nurses run clinics, diagnose patients, take on high-level management roles and help to lead medical research. We should accelerate efforts to achieve the target of 700 Advance Practice Nurses by 2030.

Beyond pay, management culture, work recognition and working hours are also areas that need to be examined for a holistic improvement of the profession.

Including PwDs in pandemic response measures

During the pandemic, many people with disabilities (PwDs) experienced difficulties coping with measures such as the blocking off of regular entrances and exits, shifting access points for PwDs, and having to locate and scan SafeEntry codes. Many wheelchair users and people with developmental disabilities, visual impairments and autism spectrum disorder had difficulties with SafeEntry scanning. Measures such as COVID-19 swabbing and mask-wearing were difficult for some people with mental disabilities. I recall a resident of mine who was very worried that her son, who had a mental disability, would struggle and hurt himself when made to undergo mandatory swabbing at his block when an outbreak occurred there.

While support for PwDs was eventually introduced, much of this was reactive. This could be due to an absence of meaningful participation by PwDs when safe management measures were implemented.

Moving forward, it would be advisable to have at least one member of the disability community on emergency task forces so that the community’s views can be adequately represented. More importantly, all policies rolled out need to take into account the unique needs of PwDs, to ensure that they are not excluded.

Honest communication with Singaporeans

The next section of my speech deals with the public communication on pandemic mitigation measures.

In January 2020, the Government issued an infographic titled “Advisory on wearing masks” which highlighted that “masks are generally not needed for people who are well.”

The infographic, which was also posted on social media, added that “there are sufficient masks in the warehouses and government stockpiles.”

The then-chairman of the PAP’s Government Parliamentary Committee for Health, Dr Chia Shi-Lu, echoed the Government’s line later that month when he told the New Paper that “surgical masks can prevent the passing of virus from a wearer, but when it comes to protecting (a healthy wearer), the masks won’t protect from viruses.”

The Prime Minister, in January 2020, said Singaporeans should follow doctors’ advice on how best to protect themselves from the virus, which includes not wearing a mask unless they are unwell.

The PM rightly pointed out though, that the “Wuhan virus” — as it was then called — was “probably more infectious than SARS, and possibly infectious even before people have symptoms.” This was on 31 January 2020.

The fact that the Government knew in those early days that asymptomatic transmission of the virus could occur should have prompted them to advise everyone to wear masks when in contact with other people.

On 10 February 2020, four local doctors did just that by issuing a statement urging Singaporeans to wear masks always when leaving home, even if they were well. Dr Colleen Thomas, Dr Judy Chen, Dr Tham Hoe Meng and Dr Lim Pin Pin acknowledged the difficulties in obtaining new surgical masks every day, and urged the use of creative solutions like washable cloth masks or scarves. They pointed out that these measures were better than no mask at all.

In response to the four doctors a few days later, the Director of Medical Services at MOH said that “it is not wearing masks that’s most important, it’s hand washing” — even though the two actions were not a binary choice. The Straits Times ran an article to “educate” the public on questions like, “Is it really true that you do not need to wear a mask if you are not sick? Is hand washing better protection against viruses than a mask?”

These statements were incongruous and did not seem to be consistent with common sense. People intuitively knew that any layer preventing the spread of droplets would be better than not having one.

It took a leaked recording of a Minister at a closed-door meeting in February 2020 to reveal that Singapore was rationing masks to save them for healthcare workers.

The White Paper stated that “in hindsight…the government could have encouraged Singaporeans to devise their own face masks while we set up manufacturing lines to ramp up production of surgical masks.” This was not hindsight — it was what the four doctors advised in the first place, which the Government did not heed.

It took another three months for the Government to stop discouraging people from wearing masks by “updating the guidance” on 3 April 2020. The result of the about turn, as acknowledged in the White Paper, was that public trust in the Government was eroded. Singaporeans saw through the Government’s initial statements about the real reason why they were discouraging those who were well from wearing masks — it was because there were insufficient supplies of surgical masks, not because mask wearing was less effective than hand-washing.

While concerns over panic buying and hoarding by the public were not unfounded, the Government had stockpiles of surgical masks for healthcare workers and should have had the power to requisition more masks from the commercial market.

Domestic manufacturing capacity during crises

This brings me to my next point: Why did Singapore not have sufficient domestic capacity to manufacture items as basic as face masks? Was the Government not able to marshal local companies to accept and prioritise contracts for the manufacture of materials deemed essential for our defence against COVID-19, including face masks and ventilators?

The White Paper mentioned that the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act gave the government the option of mobilising civilian resources using the Requisition of Resources Act (RORA), but chose not to use those powers. Instead, the government said it will leverage alternative structures — for example, through strategic partnerships or cooperation agreements — to effectively harness civilian resources for crises. I agree that it would not have been appropriate to use RORA for the COVID-19 pandemic, given that the Act is a rather blunt tool which is meant more for wartime scenarios than a public health crisis.

In any case, RORA does not appear to give the government the authority to ask the private sector to prioritise orders from the government, short of requisitioning the entire line of services. For example, it is not clear if the government can ask a company to prioritise orders from the government for the manufacturing of masks, without requisitioning and running the entire mask production facility on its own.

Will the Government consider legislation akin to the US Defense Production Act, which empowers the executive to direct private companies to prioritise orders from the federal government and take actions to restrict the hoarding of needed supplies?

The role of Temasek

I now turn to the role during the pandemic played by one major local company — Temasek Holdings.

Temasek-linked companies played an outsize role during the pandemic. Almost all the private sector partners named in the White Paper are Temasek-linked companies. The White Paper stated that private sector partners like Temasek were “indispensable” sources of support during COVID-19. This may point to an over-dependence on the Temasek ecosystem. Would it be better to diversify the base of private sector partners that can support the national effort in times of crisis?

During Question Time on March 3rd, I asked SMS (Finance) Chee Hong Tat if the Government’s total COVID-19 spending of $72.3 billion included the amount spent by Temasek Holdings, Temasek Foundation and other Temasek-linked companies for their COVID-19 activities. The SMS gave a rather convoluted answer but I believe the answer was “No”.

This being the case, can I ask: How much did Temasek and its related organisations spend out of their own budgets on COVID-19 initiatives like face masks, hand sanitiser and oxygen concentrators which were made available locally and overseas?

The White Paper stated that “While Temasek’s main goal remains to deliver long-term returns on its assets, it plays a unique role in supporting a robust portfolio of local companies that can anchor important capabilities for Singapore in a crisis.”

Does Temasek have goals other than to deliver long-term returns on its assets? Is this “unique role” part of the Government’s mandate for this Fifth Schedule company?

I appreciate the work that Temasek companies and their employees did to keep Singaporeans safe during the pandemic, and the resources they spent doing so. But I think it is important for the House to know if Temasek’s expenditure on COVID-19 constitutes a draw on our reserves and, if so, whether the approval of the President was sought and obtained?

Conclusion

Sir, it is a truism that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Notwithstanding the absence of a Committee of Inquiry, which the Workers’ Party had called for, we still have many lessons to learn from in the White Paper and this debate.

For the sake of our future generations who may have to go through catastrophic pandemics like these, we have to both learn and implement these lessons.

In this spirit, Sir, I support the motion.

____________

Speech in Parliament during the debate on Singapore’s COVID-19 Response on 20 March 2023.

Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill

Accommodations for PwDs

The Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill takes steps to make elections more accessible for people with disabilities (PwDs) through the introduction of polling stations and mobile polling teams in nursing homes. In my speech today, I would like to make a proposal that could help PwDs more fully participate in the election process.

Article 29(a)(iii) of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which Singapore has ratified, calls for political participation by disabled people by “Guaranteeing the free expression of the will of persons with disabilities as electors and to this end, where necessary, at their request, allowing assistance in voting by a person of their own choice.”

However, the Government has placed a reservation on Article 29(a)(iii), stating that to keep voting secret and to safeguard the integrity of voting, PwDs can only be assisted by an election official. According to the Government, the election official is obliged to mark the ballot paper in the manner directed by the voter and is under oath to keep the vote secret.

Has the Government considered the possibility that some PwDs would prefer to have someone they know and trust to help them to vote? This is a concern also expressed by the Disabled People’s Association (DPA). Other countries such as Canada and Germany allow friends and family to assist a PwD with voting. In Canada, the provision is made under Section 243.01 of the Canada Elections Act, which allows for either a friend or a relative to accompany a voter who “requires assistance to vote.”

In Germany, this is provided under Section 14 of the Federal Elections Act, which states that: “Persons eligible to vote who are illiterate or prevented by a disability from casting their vote may avail themselves of another person’s assistance for that purpose.”

If the concern is that the person assisting the PwD will not keep the vote secret, they can be required to take an oath of secrecy, just like all the candidates’ polling agents and counting agents currently do.

Incorporating this measure will better ensure that PwDs can exercise their right to vote in a smooth and comfortable manner, while upholding the secrecy of their vote and election integrity.

Electronic voting and counting of votes

The Bill allows for votes to be counted by electronic means. This adds to previous amendments to the Act where electronic voting was permitted.

When votes are counted by manual or mechanical means, counting agents appointed by the candidates and the candidates themselves are able to personally witness the counting of all the votes. They can physically ensure there is no mis-count of votes for each candidate.

The existing Act sets out the details on the inspection and testing of electronic voting machines in the presence of the candidates, their election agents or polling agents before and during elections. However, the Bill before us today does not appear to mention the inspection and testing of the electronic counting machines or system.

Can the Minister clarify how the candidates and their counting agents will be able to audit the votes counted by electronic means?

Allowable activities after Parliament is dissolved

Finally, I would like to seek more clarity from the Minister about what kind of election activities are allowed in the period from the day the Writ of Election is issued to Nomination Day. The rest of the questions in this speech relate to this period.

Parliament is dissolved when the Writ of Election is issued. When this happens, every Member of Parliament ceases to be an MP according to Article 46(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore and their allowances cease to be paid.

After Parliament is dissolved, are the former MPs allowed to hold Meet-the-People sessions (MPS) in their constituencies, interact with residents and provide assistance to them? Can they write appeal letters to government agencies or other organisations on behalf of their constituents, and if they do, are agencies obliged to respond to them?

It should be noted that many residents will not be aware that MPs stand down after Parliament is dissolved and will continue contacting their MPs for assistance, sometimes on urgent personal matters or municipal matters that have safety implications.

Next, do grassroot adviser (GRA) appointments cease when the Writ is issued? If not, can GRAs continue operating as per normal after the Writ is issued, including writing appeal letters to government agencies on behalf of residents?

Given that the People’s Association almost always appoints individuals who are PAP members as GRAs, would allowing GRAs to operate as per normal during this period circumvent the restrictions that are otherwise placed on election candidates, and create an unlevel playing field for the opposition?

Is “campaigning” allowed from the day the Writ is issued to Nomination Day? Are potential candidates allowed to conduct house-to-house visits or visit markets and coffee shops, to either check on residents’ well-being or explicitly canvass for votes, while wearing their party uniforms and badges?

Just before previous elections, some incumbent MPs and potential candidates conducted some of these activities. For example, a Yahoo News article entitled “GE2020: Josephine Teo to leave Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC to contest in Jalan Besar” reported that Mrs Teo was “seen during a People’s Action Party (PAP) walkabout at Beo Crescent on Monday morning (29 June), together with Jalan Besar incumbent Members of Parliament (MPs) Denise Phua and Heng Chee How, as well as new candidate Wan Rizal Wan Zakariah. They were introduced to the residents as candidates contesting the GRC.”

That year, Parliament was dissolved on 23 June and Nomination Day was 30 June. This constituency walkabout took place within this period.

In another article in the Straits Times, it was reported that then-National Development Minister Lawrence Wong announced the PAP’s slate in Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC at a walkabout in the Marsiling ward of the GRC on 28 June — again within this period. There was even a video of the team, consisting of Mr Wong, Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Mr Alex Yam and Ms Hany Soh, together with Mr Ong Teng Koon, the former MP of the ward, at a coffee shop wearing their PAP all-white uniforms. At least two members of the group were wearing a PAP badge.

In the Candidate Handbook for General Election 2020 published by the Elections Department, under section 2.4 titled “Activities from Writ of Election to Nomination Day”, it stated that “After the Writ of Election is issued and before the campaign period starts, activities such as walkabouts, house-to-house visits, distributing election pamphlets, handouts and newsletters, and publishing of party manifestos and candidates’ biographical details will be subject to the applicable election advertising requirements.”

This implies that such activities are allowed subject to advertising requirements.

The next paragraph in that same section states more explicitly that “Political parties and candidates may conduct campaigning activities such as walkabouts, house-to-house visits and the distribution of collaterals.”

Based on section 2.4 of the Candidate Handbook, it appears that some types of campaigning, including walkabouts, house-to-house visits and distribution of collaterals from the day the Writ of Election is issued to Nomination Day are allowed. However, the same language is not reflected in the Parliamentary Elections Act. Can the Minister please clarify if the ELD Handbook is legally accurate in this respect?

Summary

Mr Speaker, to strengthen our democracy, the accessibility, integrity and fairness of our election process is of paramount importance. I look forward to the Minister addressing the questions and concerns I have raised.

_________

Debate on the Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill, 6 March 2023

Photo by Element5 Digital on Pexels

MOH: Intermediate and long-term care

As Singapore’s population ages, the demand for intermediate and long-term care (ILTC) will continue to increase. A paper on the Future of Long Term Care in Singapore by researchers from the LKY School of Public Policy identified three main issues to tackle in this sector: manpower capabilities, infrastructure capacity and coordination across the sector. I will focus on manpower in my cut.

Manpower shortages are a key challenge for the ILTC sector. The ILTC workforce includes doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and social workers. A high proportion are foreigners. The Lien Foundation has pointed out that Singapore’s ILTC sector is more reliant on foreign workers than other fast-ageing economies such as Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. More needs to be done to attract locals to work in the ILTC sector.

What plans do MOH and ILTC providers have to encourage more Singaporeans to join the sector and what results have been achieved so far?

What progress has been made in enhancing salaries, work-life balance, organisational culture, professional development opportunities, and fostering a greater sense of purpose towards the profession, particularly in the ILTC sector?

The Ministry could also look at attracting non-practicing or retired nurses to return, perhaps on a locum basis, to help relieve the manpower crunch in ILTCs. Ms Sylvia Lim also called for this earlier.

Lastly, only 12% of registered nurses in 2021 were males. Is MOH looking to encourage more men to enter the profession so as to boost the overall numbers of nurses?

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Committee of Supply Debate, Ministry of Health, 3 March 2023

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