Debated in Parliament on 11 Jan 2022.
Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Manpower (a) in the past five years, how many inspections on the food provisions for migrant workers have been conducted annually; and (b) what is the change in the proportion of migrant workers who have access to cooking facilities before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
MOM actively puts out its feelers on the ground to look after the general well-being of migrant workers. These include (a) deploying Forward Assurance and Support Teams (FAST) to dormitories regularly to engage the migrant workers about their overall welfare; (b) working with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that engage with migrant workers; and (c) providing a mobile application “FWMOMCare” for migrant workers to report issues, including access to food, to MOM.
In the last five years, we received occasional feedback about food, such as food quality issues or the food not meeting the workers’ cultural or dietary needs. We take this seriously and would require the employer to address the feedback promptly.
About two-thirds of migrant workers reside in dormitories which have cooking facilities. Almost all of them have resumed cooking, with proper safe management measures in place. For workers who do not have access to cooking facilities, their employers would have made other arrangements for workers to have access to food.
PAPERCUTS