Debated in Parliament on 20 Mar 2023.
*Debate resumed. (proc text)]
Thank you, Leader, and thank you, Deputy Speaker. Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, Members of the House, the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a long and arduous journey, fraught with many uncertainties and challenges. The struggles faced by many were heart-wrenching. There were countless difficult decisions and tradeoffs made in the fog of war.
But right from the start, we had one overriding objective and that is to protect lives, jobs as well as livelihoods. We were determined to emerge with a strong and resilient economy and to shield our workers from the full economic brunt of the pandemic.
We pulled through on both counts. We also made a concerted effort to safeguard our migrant workers' health and thankfully, despite the scale of the outbreak in the dormitories, the mortality rate among our migrant workers was very low.
The other silver lining in the dark cloud of this pandemic was witnessing the resilience of our people – one people, standing together, as one nation.
It has been a profoundly humbling and heartening experience to see the outpouring of support from the private and people sectors and the indomitable spirit of our workers.
To our local and foreign workers, our employers, the industry associations, tripartite partners and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as the Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC), HealthServe and Hope Initiative Alliance (HIA) and the many more on the list whom Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohammad will mention tomorrow – thank you, from the bottom of all of our hearts.
Mr Bernard Menon from the MWC, Dr Benjamin Kuan from HealthServe and Reverend Ezekiel Tan from HIA also joined us earlier today. It has been all of your support, your labours, your sacrifices, together with all the rest, that have weathered us through the storm.
Today, I will reflect on the decisions made, the tradeoffs considered, and the lessons learnt in the Ministry of Manpower (MOM)'s journey in the following areas: one, bringing the outbreak in the migrant worker dormitories under control; two, protecting jobs and livelihoods of our workers; and three, building stronger systems and capabilities for the future.
We were thrust into an uncertain and extremely unpredictable environment in early 2020. There was a paucity of knowledge about the virus regarding its inherent characteristics and transmission modes at the early stage. The prevailing expert view in early 2020 was that the COVID-19 virus was closely related to SARS and symptomatic transmission was the main mode of spread.
It was also thought that COVID-19 was spread primarily through droplets rather than airborne transmission. Some experts were even saying that the pandemic itself would be over by the summer season.
The inherent mutagenic potential of the virus however, resulted in rapid mutations from Alpha to Delta and subsequently Omicron. Even now, it continues to evolve and it continues to mutate. We had to respond, we had to adapt quickly, learning continuously in real time, given the uncertainties about the virus.
Drawing from the SARS experience and prevailing expert views about symptomatic transmission, we implemented measures like temperature taking at the migrant worker dormitories and isolation of workers who reported sick with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms.
At every point in time, our measures were guided by science and the latest evidence available at that moment in time.
We did not pick up on the asymptomatic cases and we were under the impression then, that our measures were sufficient. Of course, looking back now, we were completely mistaken. It was only in April 2020 that the infectious disease experts began to realise that COVID-19 could spread asymptomatically.
By then, the virus was already spreading in the dormitories. We did not have a clear, comprehensive and timely picture of the workers who were sick, because not everyone reported sick. There were significant gaps in our understanding of the disease, in testing, in surveillance and in the data and information regarding the location of the workers in the dormitories.
Recognising the scale of the outbreak in the dormitories, the Government set up the Inter-agency Task Force (ITF) in April 2020, brought in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and the Home Team, as well as public healthcare capabilities.
We required the resources and organisation to manage the highly complex operations in the dormitories. Drawing on the expertise and resources of multiple stakeholders, the ITF mobilised nearly 3,000 officers and volunteers from the SAF, the Home Team, MOM and across the Public Service. During that period, we worked closely with dormitory operators, employers, the medical community, NGOs and other community groups, to provide care and support for the migrant workers in the dormitories.
In April 2020, the dormitories were progressively put under lockdown and the circuit breaker was also implemented in the community. This helped to arrest the spread of COVID-19 in the dormitories.
We knew that the dormitory lockdown put the migrant workers under stress and strain, but if we had not done so, the transmission among migrant workers across the dormitories and into the community would have been much more severe and much more widespread.
If we had allowed transmission to grow out of control, the situation could have become what we saw in other countries – a large number of cases that may have overwhelmed the entire healthcare system with a high consequent number of deaths.
Once we had made that difficult decision, the ITF swung into action and set up medical posts and networks in and around the dormitories. Thermometers and oximeters were given to migrant workers to monitor their health. We took care of our migrant workers the best we could, based on what we knew, with the resources that we had, and we ensured that all migrant workers had access to good medical care, help and treatment if needed – timely treatment, if needed.
Here, I would like to put on record our appreciation to many of our selfless healthcare workers from both the public and private healthcare institutions who were among the first to step up and provide medical services to our migrant workers living in dormitories at the start of the pandemic.
One exemplary individual, who also came earlier on, during the lunch, I think some Members of the House would have met him. One exemplary individual was Dr Muntasir Mannan Choudhury, a hand surgeon with Sengkang General Hospital, who was serving at a medical post in the S11 dormitory in early-2020.
During the early days of the pandemic where communications with migrant workers were challenging due to language barriers, Dr Muntasir took the initiative and spoke in Bengali using a loud hailer to reassure the residents that their medical needs, their safety and their well-being would be attended to.
In the last three years, he has continued to volunteer his medical services and linguistic capabilities and continued to provide free medical advice to Bengali workers living in smaller dormitories. He also gave health talks to large groups of migrant workers.
At the time, we did not have many large-scale facilities readily available to de-densify the dormitories. We knew that conveying COVID-19-positive workers away from COVID-19-naive ones and isolating them was key.
To this end, the Government worked with private sector partners to set up quarantine, isolation and recovery facilities. Forward Assurance Support Teams (FAST teams) were formed, they were deployed at the dormitories to provide direct access to workers to assure them, to care for them and to engage them.
To slow down the transmission of the virus in the dormitories, the workers could not intermingle within the dormitories. We organised and we distributed the meals to the 200,000 workers over four months and ensured that employers continued to pay their workers even when they could not work. Mobile remittance services were also set up to make it convenient for workers to remit monies back home to their loved ones.
As mentioned by Miss Rachel Ong, we recognised that some migrant workers, particularly those in the factory-converted dormitories (FCDs) faced difficulties in accessing food as they typically sourced and cooked their own food. It was a challenging time for everyone, we appreciate the NGOs stepping in and working with MOM to provide food for the workers where needed. Workers who could not access food could contact MOM for assistance, while MOM concurrently liaised with employers to take over this responsibility when things stabilised.
By the time that the dormitory lockdown was lifted in August 2020, we estimated that about half of the migrant workers in dormitories had been infected by COVID-19, the vast majority of whom had mild or asymptomatic infection. The number of migrant workers who were severely ill, for example, requiring intensive care in hospital, was fortuitously low. In spite of that, regrettably, two workers from the dormitories passed away as a result of COVID-19.
Every death is one death too many. We had not managed to keep transmission in the dormitories low, but we did our level best at that time, to make sure, alongside with the doctors, that the migrant workers received good medical care and attended to their other needs. The situation could have turned out much worse, but through the collective efforts of multiple stakeholders mentioned earlier, we managed to stave off a potentially worse outcome.
At this juncture, I must also acknowledge the trust and support given by our migrant workers throughout this period. It was an immensely difficult time for them because they were worried about COVID-19 and they also worried about the uncertainty for their future. I am gratified that they trusted the Government to do right by them.
One of the migrant workers, Mr Hassan Mehadi, conveyed his appreciation to us in a piece of feedback. He wrote: "In April 2020, I was brought to Tan Tock Seng Hospital and I was confirmed to be COVID-19-positive. When I was there, I saw other Singaporeans who were being treated in the same room as me. That gave me a lot of assurance that I would be well taken care of and given the same level of treatment as Singaporeans. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank the Singapore Government and the great healthcare team for taking care of migrant workers like us with so much care and concern."
His story reflects the trust, cooperation and the incredible resilience of our migrant workers. With their support, we were able to safeguard their health and their livelihoods.
By August 2020, the ITF had completed testing of all dormitory residents to clear the dormitories of COVID-19. The workers could now return to work.
To continue the work of the ITF, the Assurance, Care and Engagement (ACE) Group in MOM was formed. The mission of the ACE Group was to safeguard the well-being of our migrant workers by enhancing support for their healthcare, housing and social needs while keeping the workers safe during the pandemic.
Our priority continued to be to protect the health and well-being of our migrant workers. ACE established ground presence in the dormitories to assure migrant workers of our continued support. We set up an infection prevention and control programme working with nurses and FAST teams to teach hand washing, personal hygiene and social distancing. In addition, we implemented routine testing and quarantine processes to keep the migrant workers safe. The team also looked after their well-being and recreational needs together with NGOs.
We worked with private and public laboratories to increase the frequency of collection of swab samples and expanded capacity for processing of test results, so that we could test more workers more quickly. This enabled our ACE teams on the ground to identify infected workers and their close contacts quickly and to convey them to recovery and quarantine facilities. We undertook all these measures before vaccination was available, so that the situation in the dormitories would remain safe and stable.
Even though there were some COVID-19 clusters and transmission after the completion of dormitory clearance, ACE and MOH working closely together, were able to bring these under control through testing and through isolation.
We achieved a significant milestone of zero new cases reported in the dormitories on 13 October 2020. This brought a new sense of confidence and optimism in our ability to respond to this virus.
Vaccination was a key lever in our arsenal in the fight against COVID-19 when it arrived. MOM and MOH worked closely together to make vaccination available to migrant workers from March 2021, at the same time as the rollout for the local community. Informational packages in the migrant workers' native languages were distributed to help them understand the benefits of the vaccination.
Leveraging the networks of our migrant worker volunteers, dormitory operators and NGOs, we were able to reach out to all workers and encourage them to come forward to be vaccinated. In less than six months, over nine in 10 migrant workers living in the dormitories were fully vaccinated. This made a difference when the highly transmissible Delta variant struck in mid-2021 and there was no further loss of life to COVID-19 among migrant workers living in the dormitories.
Bringing COVID-19 infection under control in the dormitories was only one piece of the picture. We had to keep it that way, even as new workers entered Singapore to support our economy.
For example, MOM set up one-stop onboard centres so that new workers entering Singapore were brought into a dedicated facility to complete their Stay-Home Notices (SHNs), get the necessary medical examinations, COVID-19 testing, vaccination and orientation programme done all under one roof. At the onboard centres, imported cases could be screened out, isolated, managed and contained, so that the disease was not brought into the dormitories.
With the tightening of border measures due to new variants of concern, various industry associations organised a pilot initiative to test workers and safeguard them from infection at dedicated facilities in their home countries before onward travel to Singapore.
Once the infrastructure was in place, we were subsequently able to reopen safely and earlier, so that the economy could also restart earlier. We started bringing back the migrant workers in significantly larger numbers from end 2021. This was important for many sectors, including the restart of Singapore’s construction efforts. Senior Minister of State Zaqy Mohamad will make further mention of our efforts in the construction sector.
Members of the House, looking back at the way we contained and managed the outbreak in the dormitories, we asked ourselves – could we have done things differently?
If all of you recall, at the start, testing capacities were very limited, but I think we could have done more. We could have done more surveillance through sample testing for the different migrant worker population to detect clusters early.
Masks were very scarce at the start, but we could have ensured some form of facial covering, protective covering or some form of mask were worn by migrant workers to reduce the incidence of transmissions.
In the fog of war, we could also have communicated better with the dormitory workers at every stage and every step of the way, to better share information and to assure them on the measures we were taking to protect them.
MOM will learn from these lessons and we will strive to do better in the future.
This brings me to how we will use the lessons learnt from COVID-19 to build resilience in the dormitories against a future pandemic.
The three areas of reforms are: (1) housing resilience in the form of new dormitory standards; (2) healthcare resilience in the form of a new primary healthcare system; and (3) focusing on mental well-being and social support resilience by building awareness of mental health issues and support resources.
As we transit to endemicity, we have continued to review measures on the living arrangements of our dormitory residents as part of enhancing liveability in the dormitories and ensuring that Singapore will be better prepared for future health crises.
In September 2021, we introduced improved standards for all new migrant worker dormitories. Mr Leon Perera asked for NGOs to be engaged. We already have done so. We have engaged with a very broad range of NGOs for these improved standards, including Healthserve and HOME.
Some of these standards include enhanced living and public health such as larger living space per resident, in room wifi, en-suite toilets, better ventilation in rooms and dedicated bed spaces for isolation purposes as well as wastewater surveillance.
Mr Louis Ng earlier spoke about minimum standards in the dormitories. We are also working closely with stakeholders to develop a plan for existing dormitories to transition to the new improved standards. This will take into consideration what existing infrastructure in the dormitories today that they can support, as well as the potential disruption to dormitory bed supply, and how this will impact the inflow of migrant workers. We will announce details of this transition plan later on in the year.
Miss Rachel Ong spoke earlier about the conditions in the Factory Converted Dormitories (FCDs). Prior to the pandemic, MOM inspected all FCDs in 2016 and took action against a quarter of them. Six FCDs were also prosecuted for unacceptable living conditions. This was followed up with another round of inspections for those with poor standards. Since 2017, 175 FCDs were served with warnings and fines. Another four were also prosecuted for unacceptable accommodation.
But we recognise, beyond punitive measures, that more needs to be done to raise the standards of dormitories, including the FCDs.
We will continue to strengthen our regulatory levers on dormitory operators. The scope of the Foreign Employee Dormitories Act (FEDA) will be expanded to include migrant worker dormitories with seven or more beds starting from 1 April 2023.
This will increase the number of dormitories, including FCDs, regulated under FEDA from the current 53, in about two weeks' time, it will go up to 1,500, and allow MOM to raise standards and respond quickly to future emergencies. This will also give MOM additional levers to enforce against the dorm operator. Other than financial penalties, the Commissioner for FEDA can issue compliance directives to the operator to rectify lapses as well as business restrictive orders which will prohibit operators from taking in new tenants until the operator makes good on all its shortcomings.
To grow our capabilities in dormitory management, MOM will also be building and owning two new dormitories, which will be operated by a new corporate entity in partnership with the private sector. They will also provide MOM with the opportunity to innovate and pilot new ideas for public health resilience and dormitory living, to improve the lived experience of migrant workers. These initiatives to enhance the standards of the living environment of our migrant workers, will transform the features of the entire migrant worker landscape.
Our FAST teams, first deployed during the circuit breaker in 2020, and now under ACE, continue to proactively and regularly visit dormitories to engage migrant workers on their overall well-being and work with both workers and dormitory operators to resolve issues on living conditions in a timely manner.
At the end of 2022, we have also added a new feature on FWMOMCare, where migrant workers can send a request to talk to MOM via the mobile application. The FAST officer will then contact the workers directly to address any issue or feedback that the workers may have. This provides an additional avenue for workers to seek assistance when they face a problem.
ACE is now a permanent capability to support our migrant workers in their everyday lives and will also have the capability to respond quickly in a future pandemic.
In addition to housing resilience, learning from the pandemic, we will also need to strengthen healthcare resilience in the migrant worker community. We took a holistic approach to redesign the way primary care services were delivered to migrant workers and change the way migrant workers sought care when they are unwell.
We made two significant changes.
First, we organised workers living in dormitories into six geographical zones all over the country and we appointed Anchor Operators to provide integrated primary medical service at designated Medical Centres and affiliated clinics. To date, there are 10 medical centres and a network of partnered private clinics serving the population of more than 300,000 workers.
To bridge language and cultural barriers, the Anchor Operators have put in place multilingual translation capabilities and augmented their clinical teams with healthcare workers who can speak the native languages of our migrant workers.
For the second initiative, we have also mandated a Primary Care Plan (PCP) offered by all Anchor Operators that covers most of the primary care needs of the workers at a fixed annual fee to employers, thereby giving them greater peace of mind.
With the PCP, workers can now choose to seek medical consultation 24 hours a day via telemedicine or report sick at their designated regional medical centres for a small co-payment fee.
With these measures, we help employers provide quality primary care at affordable cost and allow workers to develop better health-seeking habits through accessible medical care. At the same time, we are also able to leverage on the new primary healthcare system for public heath surveillance.
The healthcare resilience of our migrant worker community is now significantly strengthened.
As the COVID-19 situation improved in Singapore, we took a careful and calibrated approach to progressively ease restrictions in order to safeguard migrant workers’ health. We started relaxing movement restrictions from as early as September 2020, but we had to roll back because of the emergence of new variants.
We increased the frequency of such visits to recreation centres and the community significantly, in the latter part of 2021 after the Delta wave had passed and we had assessed that it would be much safer to do so.
We had to constantly make judgement calls on when and how quickly to ease movement restrictions on migrant workers living in dormitories. New COVID-19 variants were emerging all the time and there were persistent concerns about vaccine breakthrough and re-infections. There were also concerns that new variants were getting more infectious while time was needed to assess if there were any changes to disease severity and vaccine effectiveness.
So, amid the uncertainty, our considerations were always to prioritise our migrant workers’ safety and ensure that they could continue working, receive their salary and send money home. Nonetheless, this took a toll on the mental well-being of the migrant workers. However, if we had opened up more quickly and it precipitated another series of large outbreaks, it would have put at risk, again, the health of the migrant workers.
As it turned out, there were no further COVID-19 fatalities beyond the two in the early phase. We could have eased up more quickly, but, then again, all this is on hindsight.
Sir, in November 2020, the ACE Group also set up a multi-stakeholder taskforce called Project DAWN (Depression, Awareness, Well-being, Normalisation). This comprises representatives from MOM, the Government, psychologists, the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and two NGOs – the Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC) and HealthServe. The purpose of forming Project DAWN is to develop a comprehensive support ecosystem to manage and support the mental health of migrant workers.
The DAWN task force has since developed resources and raised greater awareness of mental health issues and among our migrant worker community and stakeholders.
The DAWN framework consists of seven initiatives. Suffice to say that they are meant for primary prevention and then, for that, we have mental and social wellness awareness and promotion.
For secondary prevention, we have identification of at-risk patients and the risk factors, screening for mental health issues, surveillance for the mental health and emotional distress and counselling, and the ramping up of training of para-counsellors.
For tertiary prevention, we have developed a plan for timely escalation of care and, when they recover, the provision of post-intervention support to rehabilitate them back, hence, normalisation.
These initiatives have been progressively rolled out over the past two-and-a-half years.
Our employers and the dormitory operators form an integral part of the support ecosystem for our workers. They are regularly reminded by MOM to look out for the well-being of their workers and encourage closer networks and engagement at work and also in the dormitories.
Appropriate access to care services, such as counselling and community support, was also strengthened. With MOM's support, HealthServe set up its 24-hour counselling hotline which has been operational since August 2021 and hired more native-speaking para-counsellors to deliver culturally attuned counselling.
We would not have been able to build resilience in these areas alone. It was in this pandemic that we saw the best of Singaporeans, and, indeed, our humanity shone through when we demonstrated care for our neighbours.
We saw NGOs, businesses, migrant workers, local communities step up to provide food and gifts, care and contributions for our migrant workforce. We learnt how important it was to continually foster these partnerships, as each and every one of these partners made a difference in turning the tide.
We will remember these lessons as we build a stronger migrant worker ecosystem, as we work collectively with our many partners to care for our migrant workers and ensure that the migrant workforce remains a productive and pandemic-resilient complement to our workforce.
I am going to spend the next few minutes going through and elaborating on what we are doing to support our local jobs and livelihoods. Even as we safeguarded the well-being of our migrant workers, our abiding concern was the jobs and livelihoods of Singaporeans.
To help workers and employers navigate through the storm, MOM and the tripartite partners acted quickly. We convened the National Wages Council (NWC) soon after the start of the pandemic in March 2020, to guide employers on how they could sustain their businesses and save jobs.
The tripartite partners also issued and updated numerous advisories on matters ranging from leave arrangements during quarantine, managing excess manpower and responsible retrenchment, to workplace vaccination policies. The NWC guidelines and many of the advisories were negotiated under pressing timelines but they provided fair and balanced guidance for both workers and employers.
This was only possible through and with the trust among the tripartite partners that has been painstakingly built up over the past many decades.
To expand opportunities for jobseekers amid uncertainty and disruptions, the National Jobs Council (NJC) was formed to oversee the design and implementation of the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package, which supported locals to enter new jobs, to upskill themselves, or to be better positioned for recovery.
Various members of the NJC, including unions and business leaders, mobilised their respective networks, their expertise and their resources to support jobseekers to enter into new opportunities.
Mr Yip Hon Weng also spoke earlier about assistance to workers who were retrenched. Where retrenchments were inevitable, the Taskforce for Responsible Retrenchment and Employment Facilitation (RTF) reached out to affected local employees to offer employment support, including the provision of information kits on career resources and job fairs. Workers were also supported through matching of excess manpower across industries, skills upgrading efforts and career coaching and advisory initiatives.
Taken together, the collective efforts of the Government, the unions and the employers achieved significant traction and scale in supporting jobs and livelihood.
From April 2020 to April 2022, around 200,000 locals were placed into jobs and skills opportunities under the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Package. Besides, over 744,000 jobseekers were hired with support under the Jobs Growth Incentive, which encouraged local hiring in growing firms as the focus shifted to supporting recovery.
In addition, to help self-employed persons whose livelihoods were affected by the period of extraordinary economic uncertainty, we introduced the Self-Employed Persons Income Relief Scheme (SIRS) for self-employed persons with less means and family support. Close to 200,000 self-employed persons benefited from SIRS. We appreciate NTUC for stepping forward to help with the appeals for SIRS.
Additional support for self-employed individuals, such as taxi and private hire car drivers, also came in the form of other Government schemes like the COVID-19 Driver Relief Fund. This support was disbursed by taxi and platform operators, who also helped their drivers with rental relief and commission rates.
These efforts contributed to the recovery of the labour market even before the pandemic ended. By December 2020, resident employment had rebounded to slightly above pre-COVID-19 levels, with the net number of residents in employment for the year increasing by 14,900, despite contractions in the first half of 2020.
The resident unemployment rate stayed below 5% throughout 2020 even when economic conditions were at their worst and, of course, it eventually recovered to pre-pandemic levels in 2022.
We have drawn useful takeaways from the experience of COVID-19.
First, we found that accessibility is key to the delivery of employment facilitation services. The establishment of the SGUnited Jobs and Skills Centres in all 24 HDB towns was accompanied by improved sentiments towards Government employment facilitation, which suggested that the increased accessibility and physical presence of these job matching services could have helped to reduce the anxiety of jobseekers.
Post-COVID-19, we have maintained the network of Jobs and Skills Centres as readily accessible touchpoints for jobseekers in the heartlands.
Second, we have expanded the diversity of channels available to support the employment of jobseekers. For example, the new SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme introduced during COVID-19 has allowed employers to evaluate job fit through company attachments and facilitated positive employment outcomes for trainees.
Among those who had completed or exited the programme, around eight in 10 found employment within six months. Among the trainees who found employment, more than half earned the same or higher wages, compared to the last drawn wages prior to onboarding. We have, therefore, regularised the programme from April 2022 to provide more options to mature jobseekers.
Ms Janet Ang asked how the Government intends to use the jobs and skills initiatives to correct structural employment misalignment for vulnerable jobseekers. To do more for specific groups that may need greater support to secure employment, the Government had announced enhancements to the Enabling Employment Credit and also introduced a new Uplifting Employment Credit to encourage employers to hire persons with disabilities and ex-offenders respectively.
Third, and importantly, COVID-19 has also demonstrated that we should and must continue to build on the tripartite trust and partnerships as a key competitive advantage for Singapore. Our ability to navigate to tide over the worst of the crisis was a testament to the importance of the strong tripartite partnership.
Like the ballast of our ship, strong trust and partnerships will allow Singapore to make steady progress, no matter the winds and waves ahead.
If Members will bear with me for a few more minutes, I am concluding.
Distilling lessons from the pandemic, we have made permanent structural reforms in our migrant worker management capabilities and the ecosystem of support for the local workforce so as to institutionalise lasting change.
Care for our migrant workers has been reinforced in three ways: first, we have improved standards for migrant worker dormitories and we will be expanding the coverage of FEDA; secondly, we have set up a new primary healthcare system and the Primary Care Plan for migrant workers; and third, we have better capabilities to improve migrant worker mental health with Project DAWN.
For the local workforce, we have enhanced the accessibility and diversity of channels to support jobseekers in securing employment and their career transitions.
Above all, we have built and strengthened relationships and networks with both public and private stakeholders to help us weather future storms.
COVID-19, indeed, fell on us like a heavy storm. But, together, we have weathered the worst and were able to build back stronger. The mettle of our workforce was put to the test, and we showcased our resilience by facing the challenges with grit and gumption.
I have said it earlier but let me say it again. If not for the sacrifices of each and every one of us here in Singapore, we could have come out of the pandemic in far worse shape.
Stefanie Sun's song, "We will get there", was re-sung by Aisyah Aziz with images of various workers struggling through the pandemic. The video tells the story of the many sacrifices all of us made. Many of us would have felt our stories told by the images interspersed through the video. As the lyrics go, "We've struggled through the darkest storms, with family and friends. Together, we'll stand and, in the end, hand in hand, we will get there".
Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, while we are yet to reach journey's end, we have, indeed, come through the storm, together. [Applause.]
Mr Liang Eng Hwa.
Mr Deputy Speaker, there is this ancient Chinese saying, "大疫不过三" – the literal translation being "a major pandemic would not last beyond three years". I am not sure if there was enough empirical or scientific basis but after three years of the pandemic, we can finally move on and live with COVID-19 as an endemic disease.
Fortunately, since our decisive opening in 2022 and the resumption to normal lives, we have not seen significant stresses in our healthcare system. By and large, we have moved on, with COVID-19 very much like a normal flu.
Singapore and Singaporeans as a whole went through an extraordinary experience, adapting and overcoming the harsh onslaught of the pandemic.
In all, 2.2 million people fell ill to the disease. Unfortunately, 1,711 succumbed to the disease. My deepest condolences to the families.
On our economy, we went through a roller coaster ride. In 2020, we suffered the worst full-year recession since our Independence, where in the second quarter of that year, the economy contracted by a hefty 13.2%. Among the worst hit sectors were construction, retail trade, F&B, tourism and airline. Total employment shrank sharply in 2020 while many self-employed were left with no incomes.
The nation came to an almost standstill during the two months of circuit breaker. I still remember feeling eerie, seeing the streets so empty.
Even in this very Chamber, extraordinary things happened too. We had to sit wide apart – using up the gallery spaces up there, wearing masks, wiping the microphones and rostrum after each speech and conducting self-antigen rapid tests (ART).
We even had five Budgets in a year and drawn on an unprecedented amount of $37 billion from the Reserves.
Sir, it is no exaggeration to say that the experiences and images of the last three years of our life will be in our living memory forever – very much like how our earlier generations remembered other life-changing events such as the Japanese occupation and Singapore's separation from Malaysia.
In fact, we now use the pandemic as a time reference, referring to life before COVID-19 and life after COVID-19 – "before COVID-19" as in "BC".
Sir, recently, in my workplace, we had a workshop with many of my colleagues. As part of the pre-workshop warm up teaser, the workshop moderator asked participants to share what they were most grateful for in the last three years.
I was most heartened that many participants shared they were most grateful for being a Singaporean during the last three years. They felt safe, shielded and were assured that we are well-resourced, both financially and in terms of capabilities to cope with the crisis.
Many knew that there is no perfect way to manage such a formidable crisis of this magnitude and scale, yet appreciated the balanced approach we took to manage the pandemic.
Sir, it is in this context that I like what I read in the White Paper on Singapore's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper detailed areas that we have done well but also crucially self-evaluated the areas that we could have done better. There was no glossing over of shortcomings and almost every area where we can take issue with are covered in the paper. Deputy Prime Minister Wong's speech as well as Minister Tan See Leng's speech have also elaborated some of these shortcomings.
This honest and reflective approach is important as we take stock of the whole-of-Government response to the pandemic, reaffirm and reinforce what we have done well, but also initiate necessary follow-up actions to address learning points to strengthen our response to future pandemic.
Our healthcare system withstood the stresses of the crisis well, albeit with considerable strain. Among the key successes were the capabilities that we have built up post-SARs, namely the National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) and the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).
Consequently, NPHL had the ability to develop our very own polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test kits early in the pandemic and NCID was able to attend to early serious COVID-19 patients and saved lives.
Our entire healthcare ecosystem, both public and private, were mobilised to respond as an integrated health system to this unprecedented public health crisis. I read in the media that even retired nurses and medical professionals stepped forward to join the frontline healthcare warriors in the battle to save lives.
Sir, we also scored well in our nationwide vaccination programme, making the right call with advance purchases of the most effective vaccines and thereafter ramping up to a high vaccination rate.
Another remarkable area that I wanted to highlight is how we as a small, tiny island ensured that vital supplies were not disrupted despite the lockdowns, the border controls, the intense competition for scarce items and the export restrictions by many countries.
I can imagine the uphill tasks our frontline procurement officers faced securing large amounts of sought after critical items like medical equipment and supplies, test kits, masks and a whole range of food and daily necessities. It must have required the officers to use whatever conventional or unconventional means to secure these supplies, possibly having to deviate from the usual standard operating procedures (SOPs) and instruction manuals (IMs) in such emergency situations.
Sir, the pandemic also exposed several of our vulnerabilities. It was mentioned by Deputy Prime Minister Wong as well as Minister Tan. Allow me to also express my views on the two.
First, on the migrant workers' dormitories. Among the most severe situations or high stress points was the outbreak at the migrant workers' dormitories in this pandemic. The White Paper called it a "crisis within a crisis".
Given the communal living arrangements, the dormitories inevitably became a high-risk area in a highly infectious disease outbreak. Fortunately, as what Minister Tan has said, the morbidity and the mortality rate has been very low, notwithstanding the scale of the outbreak there.
I noted that MOM has since taken significant steps to improve the dormitories' environment, with new standards and continuous efforts to de-risk the exposures. As what Minister Tan said, even with significant improvements in the living environment of these workers, we ought to still continue to institute more defensive measures such as having self-segregating features in the event of a disease outbreak, contingency plans for quarantine arrangements as well as a business continuity plan (BCP) set up.
Sir, the dormitory outbreak also reminded us that there is really a limit as to how much more we can grow our migrant workforce. We must continue to review and weigh the trade-offs of our dependency.
Sir, the second area of vulnerability I want to highlight is mask wearing. The White Paper highlighted the shortage of masks that we had to contend with. Given our domestic constraints, both labour as well as costs, as well as our shift towards more high-value-adding advance manufacturing, producing medical masks domestically may not be economically viable. It is difficult to compete with countries with a much lower cost structure.
Our domestic demand for masks under a non-pandemic environment is not high enough to achieve the scale efficiency for production to be viable. Hence, our medical masks are almost dependent on imports.
In an ironic way, thanks to the transboundary haze situation that we faced years ago, the Government does stockpile a significant quantity of masks, which helped us meet the initial wave of demand when the outbreak happened. But the stockpile quantity was never able to meet that sort of daily consumption demand needed for the entire population in a long-drawn pandemic.
We scrambled to assemble our own mask producing capabilities so that we can produce some of our mask needs locally. Credit goes to the MTI, Enterprise Singapore and the relevant agencies for getting the mask producing factory up in double quick time, just so that we have some additional back-up supplies.
Sir, in an airborne infectious disease outbreak, masking up can be our first line of defence. As part of a key measure to prepare for future pandemic, we have to designate medical masks as a critical supply item that requires some local production capability.
However, for the production to be viable, it would require some domestic anchor orders or offtake from the Government so that there is a base level production volume to work with – very much like how the Public Utilities Board (PUB) undertook the liability to buy a certain quantity of desalinated water from water production companies even though it cost more than treated water.
In this regard, can I suggest two related supportive initiatives?
Firstly, continue to encourage Singaporeans to adopt the mask-wearing habit, especially when they are unwell, in healthcare settings or in highly crowded areas such as public transport or in crowded lifts. This would not only create some local demand for masks but also help to reduce the spread of other airborne diseases such as flu, cold, cough and other influenza.
Studies indicated that there was a sharp decline in flu cases during the pandemic, which could be attributed in part to mask wearing. Just last week, The Straits Times reported that doctors saw a rise of as much as 30% increase in flu cases in the last few months as we unwind almost all our COVID-19 measures.
If less of our population were infected with flu and cold, we could free up demand for primary care clinics like polyclinics for other patients. There will be more healthy people around, which in turn leads to overall savings on healthcare costs for the population.
Secondly, to encourage the population to wear masks, I suggest that the Government, or perhaps Temasek Foundation, consider continuing the practice of distributing face masks to every Singaporean household each year as a way to encourage the wearing of masks as a responsible social habit, especially if we are unwell. This could be a part of the Healthier SG movement.
Sir, one area that I felt that we have also done well but was not quite well elaborated in the White Paper is the tremendous contributions by the grassroots community volunteers.
The grassroots volunteers rose to the occasion in various pandemic operations in the community. For example, just in Bukit Panjang, we distributed masks and hand sanitisers to more than 50,000 residents, delivered more than 4,000 care packs, groceries and social assistance to residents affected by COVID-19, installed 5,585 bottles of hand sanitisers at lifts and supported the distribution of more 4,000 TraceTogether tokens. Our volunteers also reached out to 12,566 seniors to urge them to go for their rounds of vaccinations. I am sure Members in each of their constituencies have done similar things.
These and the many other areas are where our grassroots volunteers have selflessly stepped up in this crisis in carrying out some of these duties while at risk of being infected themselves. They made a big difference in the overall health outcomes, providing last mile support and care at the neighbourhood level and, in particular, taking care of those that are vulnerable.
Sir, in conclusion, I would like to point out two underpinning factors that enable our ability to achieve the outcomes that we did as listed in the White Paper.
Firstly, it is our financial strength. There is this Chinese saying, "钱不是万能，但没钱确是万万不能". Money is not everything, but not having the financial means is inconceivable.
When the pandemic landed upon us, the Government had initially drawn on our current Budget surpluses to fund the urgent expenditures in public health defences and the various support measures for businesses and households. Thereafter, we had to draw on the Reserves as the total bill snowballed to $72.3 billion in FY2020 and FY2021.
Given the severity and the magnitude of the crisis, I had expected the Government to do more to support and assist, but I must admit the massiveness and the decisiveness in the series of fiscal interventions were more than I expected.
It once again demonstrated that the Government may well be cautious and prudent in managing its finances during peace time, but when hit with a severe crisis, the Government would not hesitate to use our fiscal firepower in an impactful way to protect lives and livelihoods. In essence, in 2020, it is the Government's spending that propped up the entire economy.
Sir, during a severe economic downturn, the foremost concerns are often about whether our economic capabilities would be permanently impaired as businesses will run into cash flow problems and some will have to wind down.
The Jobs Credit Scheme, COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act and the various financing support made a big difference to help our business stay afloat and safeguarded our capabilities.
When air traffic dropped to almost zero for a prolonged period of time, our national carrier SIA posted huge full year financial losses in 2020. Fortunately, the company was able to raise massive cash from their rights issue, with its major shareholder Temasek pledging to exercise all its rights to buy the shares. I am glad that we have shareholders that saw the strong fundamentals and long-term value of SIA as well as its business growth potential beyond the pandemic.
Secondly, Sir, given the enormous scale of this global crisis and the fluidity of the situation with known unknowns and unknown unknowns, the Government has steered the nation well through this crisis. We have kept Singaporeans safe, safeguarded the economy and taken care of the overall well-being of Singaporeans.
In the earlier stages of the pandemic, the Prime Minister addressed the nation at each turning point of the pandemic, updating Singaporeans on where we are and what may lie ahead. The Multi-Ministry Task Force (MTF) also regularly updated Singaporeans on the latest developments in an open and transparent manner.
So, I agree with the White Paper’s conclusion that there has been high quality of governance throughout the crisis.
The Prime Minister and the Cabinet has not only steered the nation into safe harbour during the pandemic but have also set our sights beyond the pandemic with moves and strategies for the country to emerge stronger.
In particular, the 4G leadership led by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has shown its mettle in leading Singapore through this crisis of a generation. Not that we want it that way, but the crisis came at a time as if to test the leadership strength of the 4G team. It is like the baptism of fire. I believe that Deputy Prime Minister Wong and the 4G team has proven their leadership ability, the tenacity, the decisiveness and courage to take difficult decisions in overcoming the crisis, as well as doing what is right and what is in the long-term good for the country.
[Mr Speaker in the Chair]
Most importantly, the 4G team has demonstrated that the well-being of Singaporeans is foremost in their minds and hearts.
Sir, I am heartened and assured that the future of Singapore is in good hands and together with the fortitude and unity of Singaporeans, we can continue to scale new heights and overcome whatever challenges that may come our way. Sir, with that, I wholeheartedly support the Motion.
Leader.
PAPERCUTS