Hansard, 2009-07-20

Under the provisions of clause 2(d) of Article 46 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, the following Members have been granted permission to be or to remain absent from sittings of Parliament (or any Committee of Parliament to which they have been appointed) for the periods stated: Name From (2009) To (2009) Dr Balaji Sadasivan 31 May 03 Jun 07 Jun 15 Jun 19 Jul 23 Jul Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong 02 Jun 04 Jun 06 Jun 19 Jun 22 Jun 24 Jun Assoc. Prof. Kalyani K Mehta 03 Jun 06 Jun 03 Jul 08 Aug Mrs Lim Hwee Hua 04 Jun 07 Jun 23 Jul 26 Jul Mr Zainudin Nordin 05 Jun 12 Jun 02 Jul 05 Jul Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng 06 Jun 10 Jun 12 Jun 16 Jun Mr Gan Kim Yong 08 Jun 23 Jun Mr Hawazi Daipi 08 Jun 14 Jun 22 Jun 25 Jun Miss Penny Low 08 Jun 30 Jun Mr S Iswaran 09 Jun 13 Jun Mr Lim Swee Say 10 Jun 17 Jun 02 Jul 05 Jul Mr Yeo Guat Kwang 10 Jun 13 Jun 02 Jul 05 Jul 16 Jul 19 Jul Column: 797Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim 11 Jun 13 Jun 08 Jul 10 Jul 25 Jul 26 Jul Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed 11 Jun 12 Jun 15 Jun 15 Jun 22 Jun 22 Jun 24 Jun 28 Jun 03 Jul 04 Jul 17 Jul 19 Jul Mr Baey Yam Keng 14 Jun 21 Jun Ms Grace Fu Hai Yien 15 Jun 16 Jun 23 Jul 25 Jul Mr Sin Boon Ann 15 Jun 23 Jun Er Edwin Khew Teck Fook 17 Jun 19 Jun Mr Wee Siew Kim 17 Jun 19 Jun 24 Jun 26 Jun 14 Jul 18 Jul 05 Aug 07 Aug 29 Aug 12 Sep Mr Charles Chong 18 Jun 21 Jun 07 Jul 08 Jul 16 Jul 17 Jul Dr Ahmad Mohd Magad 20 Jun 26 Jun 14 Jul 17 Jul 20 Jul 27 Jul Mr Liang Eng Hwa 21 Jun 24 Jun Dr Vivian Balakrishnan 21 Jun 24 Jun 25 Jun 27 Jun Mr Cedric Foo Chee Keng 22 Jun 28 Jun 21 Jul 25 Jul Mr Chan Soo Sen 22 Jun 30 Jun Mr George Yong-Boon Yeo 22 Jun 24 Jun 28 Jun 03 Jul 09 Jul 23 Jul Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M 22 Jun 23 Jun 26 Jun 28 Jun 12 Jul 15 Jul 19 Jul 23 Jul Assoc. Prof. Dr Yaacob Ibrahim 30 Jun 04 Jul 24 Jul 24 Jul Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan 02 Jul 05 Jul 02 Aug 07 Aug Mr Lim Boon Heng 03 Jul 06 Jul Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam 03 Jul 03 Jul 13 Jul 18 Jul Mr Teo Chee Hean 05 Jul 08 Jul Column: 798Mr Ang Mong Seng 07 Jul 09 Jul Mdm Halimah Yacob 08 Jul 10 Jul Dr Ng Eng Hen 08 Jul 12 Jul Mr Teo Ser Luck 08 Jul 12 Jul 24 Jul 26 Jul Mr Inderjit Singh 09 Jul 13 Jul Mr Chiam See Tong 11 Jul 25 Jul RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew 13 Jul 18 Jul Mdm Cynthia Phua 16 Jul 18 Jul 23 Jul 25 Jul Mr Wong Kan Seng 17 Jul 19 Jul Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo 18 Jul 26 Jul 31 Aug 02 Sep Mr K Shanmugam 25 Jul 27 Jul Mr Matthias Yao Chih 30 Jul 01 Aug Mr Heng Chee How 31 Jul 02 Aug 05 Aug 07 Aug Mr Abdullah Tarmugi 02 Aug 07 Aug Ms Irene Ng Phek Hoong 12 Aug 28 Aug

Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim

Mr Ang Mong Seng

ABDULLAH TARMUGI Speaker Parliament of Singapore

I have to inform honourable Members that I have on 1st June 2009 communicated to the President the Address of Thanks agreed to by resolution of this Parliament on 29th May 2009.

The term of service of the nine Nominated Members of Parliament

appointed on 18th January 2007 expired on 17th July 2009.

The Special Select Committee nominated the following nine persons to the President for appointment as Nominated Members of Parliament to fill the vacancies:

Mr Calvin Cheng Ern Lee;

Mr Terry Lee Kok Hua;

Mrs Mildred Tan-Sim Beng Mei;

Assoc. Prof. Paulin Tay Straughan;

Mr Teo Siong Seng;

Mr Viswaroopan s/o Sadasivan;

Mr Laurence Wee Yoke Thong;

Ms Audrey Wong Wai Yen; and

Ms Joscelin Yeo Wei Ling.

On 16th July 2009, President S R Nathan, by Instruments of Appointment dated 18th July 2009, appointed the nine Members as NMPs for a term of two and a half years with effect from 18th July 2009.

The Nominated Members of Parliament are present today to take their seats. They will now take their oath or affirmation of allegiance.

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath of Allegiance, or made Affirmation of Allegiance, in the order below (in group):

Mr Calvin Cheng Ern Lee (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Mr Terry Lee Kok Hua (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Mrs Mildred Tan-Sim Beng Mei (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Assoc. Prof. Paulin Tay Straughan (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Mr Teo Siong Seng (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Mr Viswaroopan s/o Sadasivan (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Mr Laurence Wee Yoke Thong (Nominated Member of Parliament);

Ms Audrey Wong Wai Yen (Nominated Member of Parliament); and

Ms Joscelin Yeo Wei Ling (Nominated Member of Parliament).

I would like to formally welcome the Nominated Members of Parliament and look forward to their participation in the proceedings of this House.

1. Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Senior Minister (a) whether MAS could have done more to supervise the management of the financial institutions involved in the selling of the high risk structured notes; (b) in view of the small amount of compensation made by the financial institutions, whether MAS is satisfied that the 10 affected institutions have treated their customers, whether vulnerable customers or otherwise, fairly; and (c) what else will MAS do to ensure that similar management lapses by the financial institutions do not recur in the future.

2. Ms Sylvia Lim asked the Senior Minister with regard to the investigation report by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) into the sale and marketing of products linked to Lehman Brothers (a) whether the action taken by MAS against the offending financial institutions is meaningful and adequate; and (b) whether MAS has itself contributed to the fiasco through lax regulation.

Mr Speaker, I have previously set out in this House the regulatory regime for the offer and distribution of

financial products in some detail and explained that our regime is in line with practices in other jurisdictions. So I will not set this out at length again. However, let me respond on the specific issues raised. There have been commentaries that MAS should not have allowed structured notes to be offered to retail investors in the first place. Under our disclosure-based regime, MAS’ role is not to judge the merits of the product being offered. Rather, MAS checks that the issuer discloses the features and risks of the product, and that there are no false or misleading statements. MAS does so based on the information provided by the issuer and its advisers. This regime applies to all investment products including structured notes. This approach provides investors with investment choices, in recognition that they have different needs and risk appetites.

In its supervision, MAS assesses whether financial institutions have proper systems and controls in place to comply with their regulatory obligations and the standards expected of them in the sale and marketing of investment products under the Financial Advisers Act (FAA), FAA regulations, notices and guidelines. This is conducted by way of thematic reviews. From time to time, MAS conducts reviews on specific issues, such as switching of investment products. Where issues are identified, MAS has required the financial institution to rectify these specific problems. MAS has also used these reviews to highlight areas for the financial industry to improve on, and has published examples of good practices adopted by financial institutions. These are the ways in which MAS has worked to lift the standards across the industry generally. However, MAS’ reviews are not intended to, and cannot, replace the primary role of the Board and senior management of financial institutions to ensure that the controls and processes

put in place to meet regulatory requirements are implemented robustly by all staff in all their dealings with customers, at all locations. MAS does not, and cannot, micro-manage financial institutions in their operations, including the sale of structured products.

In MAS’ recently released investigation findings, MAS found that the financial institutions that distributed the structured notes had policies, procedures and controls in place. The extent of non-compliance, which varied among financial institutions, was in respect of the due diligence and levels of internal controls expected of them under MAS notices and guidelines. These failings identified by MAS' investigation were taken into account by the financial institutions in the complaints assessment framework. The financial institutions have generally adopted MAS' recommendation not to take an overly legalistic approach in resolving customer complaints. They did so even though they generally took the view that the documentation signed by clients, where the clients acknowledged that they were aware of the features and risks of the product and the role of the distributors, meant they do not have legal liability to the clients. On 7th July 2009, MAS published details of the settlements offered by the financial institutions. A total of about $107 million in settlement offers have been made to about 3,900 investors. Where partial settlement is offered for Minibond notes, investors will retain all or a portion of their notes, and will keep any residual value arising from the notes retained. The residual value, if any, will depend on the ultimate value of the underlying securities.

Despite this, there are cases where it has not been possible for settlement to be reached through this process. This could have arisen from conflicting accounts of the facts and circumstances for a particular transaction. In such cases, the matter should be referred to the Financial

Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (FIDReC). At FIDReC, both parties have the opportunity to present their case and submit relevant evidence through the adjudication process. Let me emphasise that MAS’ approach was for financial institutions to review complaints on a case-by-case approach. Settlement offers are made taking into account the particular facts and circumstances of each investor and transaction. MAS’ investigation findings do not support an across-the-board general settlement for all investors, irrespective of their individual circumstances. This is because the nature and extent of failings identified and their potential impact on the sales process and customers differed for each institution and for each customer. While not all investors may accept the case-by-case approach, we believe it is the correct approach that is fair to the individual investor. The process has not been overly legalistic and is not subject to political pressure. This way we serve the interests of all parties, and also serve the wider public interest of growing Singapore’s reputation as a credible and reliable international financial centre.

Ms Sylvia Lim asked whether the regulatory action that MAS has taken against these financial institutions is meaningful and adequate. As mentioned earlier, the investigation findings were about non-compliance with MAS' notices and guidelines as well as lapses in the financial institutions’ internal controls. MAS banned the sale of structured notes by these institutions. The period of the ban ranges from a minimum of six months to a minimum of two years. MAS is of the view that the regulatory actions taken are proportionate to the nature and impact of the lapses identified, taking into account the steps taken by these financial institutions to rectify the lapses, and the extent to which they accepted responsibility and resolved investors' complaints.

MAS’ publication of detailed findings in the investigation report and the imposition of a ban are unprecedented. These actions have consequences beyond the immediate financial impact on the financial institutions. There have been adverse implications on financial institutions' reputations. Analysts and commentators have observed that since this is the first time MAS has taken such action, financial institutions’ reputations have "already taken a beating" and this reputational "hit" would affect how financial institutions do business more than the direct financial impact from the ban. The financial institutions will not be allowed to distribute structured notes even after the expiry of the ban, if MAS is not satisfied that the financial institution has rectified all the weaknesses identified, and strengthened all internal processes and procedures for the provision of financial advisory services for all investment products. The scale of this global financial crisis has been unprecedented. Institutions that many, including rating agencies, had considered strong, sound and safe have failed or needed to be bailed-out, taken over or re-capitalised by their government. This has led regulators around the world to re-examine aspects of their regulatory and supervisory approach. MAS has been doing the same.

MAS has reviewed the regulatory regime governing the sale and marketing of unlisted investment products. The consultation paper was issued in March this year. The proposals aim to promote more effective disclosure, strengthen fair dealing in the sale and advisory process, educate the investing public, and enhance MAS’ powers to investigate and take regulatory action. MAS received many useful comments from consumers and the industry and has started work on some initiatives. One example is developing the content and format of the Product Highlights Sheet together with industry representatives. MAS will be conducting

consumer testing on the effectiveness of this document. The Association of Banks in Singapore has informed MAS that its member banks have started adopting two of the proposals. Bank tellers at bank branches will be prohibited from referring customers to representatives for the purchase of investment products, and investors will be entitled to a seven-day cooling off period for some structured products. MAS is evaluating the feedback received for the other proposals and will be publishing its responses shortly.

MAS has recently reiterated some of the steps the financial industry will have to take to win back the trust and confidence of their customers. MAS’ Fair Dealing Guidelines emphasises that the Board and senior management are responsible for achieving fair dealing outcomes by their institutions. They must monitor the implementation of policies and procedures by their staff. They must step up their efforts on training for their staff, and ensure that their representatives are better trained to deal with and offer quality advice to customers. On the supervision front, MAS has said it will be intensifying its supervision of financial institutions. More resources will be devoted to this. In addition to assessing whether financial institutions have proper systems and controls in place to comply with their regulatory obligations, MAS will examine the steps taken by the Board and senior management to ensure fair dealing in areas such as product approval due diligence, pay and incentive structures as well as the training and supervision of staff. At the same time, investors must be responsible for equipping themselves with knowledge and skills to make investment decisions, so as to be able to better safeguard their interests. For investors, the basic tenet remains that if you do not sufficiently understand the nature and risks of a product, you should

not buy it. MAS and its partner agencies will step up the MoneySENSE financial literacy education efforts. For example, the recently launched MyMoney seminars aim to help investors understand common financial products. A major initiative in the coming year will be to develop a financial literacy core competency framework for financial decisions at key life stages. Ten million Singapore Dollars from the Financial Sector Development Fund have been set aside for financial education programmes over the next three years.

Supplementary question. Can the Minister confirm that MAS had previously received complaints or feedback about these financial institutions' method of selling such structured products in the past? What did MAS do to follow up on this feedback and would MAS be able to look into those complaints and feedback earlier such that the mis-selling does not occur?

Second question is to ask the Minister whether in view of the fact that there is such a large amount of monies lost and some of this is in part due to untrained sales staff, would MAS not consider a more severe reprimand or action against senior management of the bank, that would cause them to be more cautious or careful to ensure that there is no such similar management lapses?

Mr Speaker, Sir, structured products like these started to be in the market around 2005 and then took off soon after that. MAS has done several surveys, for example, to monitor customer service, particularly in the sale of such products.

In October 2005 to early 2006, for example, MAS conducted a mystery shopper survey of the financial institutions marketing investment products and MAS announced the results in 2006. In the

mystery shopper survey, there were not many complaints that MAS uncovered.

Similarly, in 2007, MAS conducted a survey of customers' responses to the service standards provided by banks and the financial institutions, and in that survey, the number complaining was not very significant.

So MAS does regularly monitor the situation conducted over the counter, on the ground. During that period of 2006 to 2008, there were some complaints, but not a significantly large number of complaints in relation to structured products.

But having said that, let me reiterate the context of this structured products episode in its entirety. As I mentioned earlier in my reply, when these products were marketed, many of the underlying institutions and the underlying securities were all well-rated, and this is an unprecedented event. If there was mis-selling, this was uncovered during the investigations. This was uncovered and dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and as a result, one-quarter of the complaints were refunded in full, another one-quarter had compensation of more than 50% of their underlying investments and another 17% had less than 50%. So two-thirds of the complainants (for the three banks and one finance company) had compensation given to them.

Sir, two supplementary questions for the Minister. MAS has decided that as punishment for the offending financial institutions, they will receive bans from selling the structured products. But given that the market for such products has totally collapsed, would the Minister agree that actually such a punishment is actually no punishment at all, because there is no demand for such products at this point in time?

Secondly, in the MAS report, it was stated that there is on-going investigation into regulatory actions to be taken against individuals and I presume that would be individual relationship managers (RMs) for mis-selling. But the investigation report documents very clearly that some of the RMs in fact were more or less victims in the process. They may have been given wrong instructions by the banks themselves, allowed to sell the products even though they did not go for training. So would the Minister not agree that actually the banks bear a large responsibility for the mis-selling part of the whole fiasco and really stiffer action should be taken against the banks rather than punishing individual RMs?

Mr Speaker, Sir, as I mentioned in my reply, the situation is more complicated. First of all, it is not the same situation in all the financial institutions. In some of the financial institutions, they assessed the risk of the product and they assessed it correctly. They had proper training for the relationship managers. They also had proper advisory process, for example, they had risk-profile taking and they did proper matching between the investment needs and the products. So we should not take a single approach to all of them because the institutions behaved differently, and some of the lapses are in the due diligence and in the implementation of the processes and regulations.

Having said that, of course this is not an episode that we are very happy with. Having done investigation, MAS found fit to go beyond a reprimand and in fact banned the financial institutions involved from selling the structured products from a minimum of six months to a minimum of two years. Ms Sylvia Lim asked whether this punishment is appropriate because the market for such structured products has collapsed. Again, as I mentioned in my reply, the impact on the financial institutions goes beyond just the financial

implications on the banks, it is also a big impact on their reputation. This move by MAS is unprecedented, as many analysts and commentators have observed, and I think the banks and the financial institutions take this very seriously. Having been given this report, and the shortcomings in the due diligence and implementation of the regulations pointed out to them, I think they will take all steps to restore their reputation.

As to the actions against the relationship managers, this is under investigation, and it is premature for me at this point to say what the results are. But I would take Ms Sylvia Lim's point that in this episode, the financial institutions bear responsibility, but in some specific cases where the relationship managers have been responsible for the mis-selling, then this should also be investigated.

3. Mdm Cynthia Phua asked the Minister for Health in light of the current outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1-2009) (a) what is the charge for calling the designated ambulance service 993; (b) what can the Ministry do to lower the related charges including the cost of testing for Influenza A (H1N1-2009) and the cost of Tamiflu; (c) whether the Ministry has a recommended guideline for fees charged by neighbourhood Pandemic Preparedness Clinics; and (d) how can the Ministry help lower income families affected by Influenza A (H1N1-2009).

Sir, Mdm Cynthia Phua has asked four specific questions on Influenza A (H1N1-2009). As this is the first time we are discussing this subject in this House, I shall give a comprehensive reply on this subject.

On 24th April, Sir, that was three months ago, the World Health Organization sounded the alert on a novel virus then circulating in Mexico and initially referred to as "the swine flu" by the media. As pig farmers raised their objection, the new virus picked on different names, including "the Mexican flu", "the North American flu". When cases began to appear in California, somebody suggested that it be called the "Schwarzenegger virus" and somebody even suggested calling it the "Terminator". The World Health Organization is less colourful and settled on naming it "Influenza A (H1N1)". While ground zero was Mexico, the virus quickly became a global pandemic and World Health Organization declared it as such on 11th June. This was of historic significance because in the last century there were only three such pandemics declared.

The initial reaction by the world was one of grave concern. The data coming out of Mexico were serious. They reported a very high case fatality rate of some 6.2% during the initial period. The normal case fatality rate was less than 0.1% for seasonal flu so this was more than sixtyfold. Moreover, the casualties in Mexico were largely coming from the young adult population, including pregnant women.

Three months after the WHO alert, the world has learnt a lot more about this novel virus and how to cope with it. While some serious issues remain, experts have generally come to the conclusion that this virus is behaving more like the seasonal flu: it can spread easily but the vast majority of the patients can recover fully, even without hospitalisation. WHO has classified this disease as one with "moderate risk". By now, all countries have shifted their strategy from "containment", in other words, trying to contain the spread and minimising the number of infected patients, to what is

called "mitigation", which is treating the high-risk patients and trying to minimise the number of deaths. In line with this approach, the World Health Organization has stopped counting the number of patients and doctors are now treating the patients clinically rather than subjecting every suspect case to Influenza A (H1N1-2009) laboratory testing. Moreover, most patients are now being treated by GPs as outpatients. Only the high-risk patients are referred to hospitals and hospitalisation is now the exception, rather than the norm. Likewise, travel advisory, temperature screening at airports, contact tracing and home quarantine measures have by now been largely stepped down.

In Singapore, we have moved our outbreak alert level from green to yellow, then briefly to orange before we moved it back to yellow. Singaporeans have done well in this battle against the first wave of the Influenza A (H1N1-2009) outbreak. Our media have done a good job of keeping everyone informed. There was no hysteria or panic, neither was there any complacency. Singaporeans took the pandemic seriously, but also carried on their lives normally, going on June holidays and taking part in the Great Singapore Sale. Schools re-opened in July uneventfully and we had a successful hosting of the first Asian Youth Games, without any major incident.

I want to thank all our front line staff – at the borders, in hospitals and clinics, in schools, in the laboratories, in childcare centres, Aloha and Pasir Ris holiday chalets, in 993 and 995 ambulances, in hotline call centres – for their dedication and diligence. They do their jobs seriously and put up with the discomfort of wearing N95s and surgical gowns. Many had their own travel plans cancelled and many worked long hours, pulling extra shifts to cope with the sudden surge in the number of suspect cases and patient load.

I want to thank Singaporeans for their sense of social responsibility. Temperature scanners at the borders picked up only one-quarter, 25% of the returned travellers with Influenza A (H1N1-2009). The other three-quarters slipped through the borders because they had no symptoms at the time of arrival, but they promptly came forward to be tested when symptoms emerged. Many had to suffer long, agonising and uncomfortable waiting under the tent outside the hospital Emergency Department while their lab tests were being processed. I thank them for their patience and tolerance.

After Mexico, US and Canada went into community spread of the virus almost immediately. They had to move straight into the mitigation phase. They had no time, no opportunity to even do any kind of containment measures. In Asia, some countries went into community spread after a month, despite very strong containment measures. Singapore was into community spread after seven weeks. We were lucky

but I think the efforts jointly put in by all Singaporeans must have contributed to this outcome.

The seven-week lag was valuable. It allowed us to better prepare our people psychologically for the eventual community spread. It allowed us to gear up our Pandemic Preparedness Clinics (PPCs) and our hospitals to free up isolation and ICU beds to treat the more complicated cases.

We are now in the last leg of our battle against the first wave of the Influenza A (H1N1-2009) outbreak. But the war is not over yet. The enemy is still out there. Going by the experience elsewhere, more Singaporeans will get infected, reaching a peak before the numbers start to decline, as we observed in New York City, where the wave peaked in May-June and has been declining since. Experts refer to this phenomenon as the community acquiring "herd immunity".

We track this development by a robust surveillance system of sampling patients with flu-like symptoms and determining the precise cause of their symptoms. Prior to community spread, none of the samples revealed any patient with positive Influenza A (H1N1-2009). Four weeks ago, the surveillance system showed that 13% of the samples were found to be Influenza A (H1N1-2009) positive. The figure moved up to 30%, two weeks ago. The latest data showed that 53% (more than half) of patients with flu-like symptoms had been infected with Influenza A (H1N1-2009). This number will continue to grow as the Influenza A (H1N1-2009) strain displaces the other influenza strains and becomes the dominant strain for this season. What it means is this. There are many influenza strains. Influenza A (H1N1-2009) is just one of them. If you happen to catch influenza during this period, say, the last few weeks or the next few weeks, the chances are, very likely, that it will be Influenza A (H1N1-2009) rather than the other traditional strains of Influenza.

As the current virus strain is mild, this development is largely benign as almost all patients will fully recover. But there will be complications among some high-risk patients and even deaths. The overall risk of death is similar to normal seasonal flu, but the risk groups are slightly different. In normal flu, those over 65 years old are at highest risk along with the very young, under two years. But in this flu, younger adults are at higher risk than those over 65, if they have underlying medical problems, such as asthma, chronic problems with breathing, gross obesity (so do keep your weight), low immunity or are pregnant. That is why we are still in yellow alert.

Over the past few days, we have stepped down many control measures, at the borders, at mass events, in factories

and in offices. Temperature taking remains in schools and SAF camps. The influenza surveillance data suggests that Influenza A (H1N1-2009) prevalence should peak within a week or two and we can expect to step down temperature taking in schools from 1st August. For SAF camps, they will step down their control measures appropriately, in accordance with their specific operational needs. However, our hospitals remain on high vigilance and we continue to discourage visitation and remind all to practise infection control measures. In the hospitals and in various places, we provide reminders as well as surgical masks for the visitors to use.

During this phase of the outbreak, there are three priorities. First, we are focusing on the high-risk patients and helping them enhance their chance of a full recovery. These are patients with underlying medical conditions, where the experience elsewhere suggests that they may face complications, including deaths. We have a few cases already. They had to be admitted to ICU for intensive care. With effective treatment, a couple have fully covered. But, unfortunately, one with a severe heart disease had succumbed to heart attack, with Influenza A (H1N1-2009) infection as well. Right now, there are still a handful in ICU, fighting for their lives and our doctors and nurses are doing their best to help save their lives. We need patients to come forward promptly, and not wait until their symptoms have become too serious to reverse.

Second, we are reviewing our control measures in the past three months. There are valuable lessons to extract from this experience and we must plug any gaps and deficiency.

Third, we are preparing Singapore for the next wave of Influenza A (H1N1-2009). Experts believe that the next wave may come when winter returns to the northern hemisphere and they worry that

the virus may then become more deadly. This is not a certainty, as viruses mutate all the time and, often, they also attenuate and become less deadly. While we hope for the best, we must, of course, always prepare for the worst.

An important aspect of the preparation is to ensure we have access to an adequate supply of a safe and effective vaccine. None exists today although there are many claims by vaccine manufacturers of such a supply before year end. We have an ongoing contract with an established vaccine manufacturer for a pandemic vaccine sufficient for our population. We are supplementing this contract with an order for one million doses from the vaccine manufacturer who can promise the quickest delivery.

But we should not put all our eggs in the vaccine basket. Any vaccine based on the current mild strain may not be effective if the virus turns more deadly. And if the virus remains mild, there may be little demand for the vaccine.

Instead, the most basic strategy against an influenza pandemic is a very high standard of personal hygiene by all Singaporeans. This can be learnt by all and incorporated into our daily life. Singaporeans must also learn the sound habit of staying at home and away from crowds when unwell and have a runny nose, fever or cough. It is no fun falling sick and we must not inflict this on others around us. And if you must go out, please put on a surgical mask.

Let me now address the specific queries by Mdm Cynthia Phua. Calls to 993 ambulance service were not charged. They are free. As the demand for 993 has shrunk considerably, we are winding up the service. In fact, we will stop the service tomorrow.

The laboratory testing of Influenza A (H1N1-2009) is costly, at about $250 per

test, but the Ministry of Health (MOH) absorbs the cost in full. So again, it is free of charge to the patients. Tamiflu is quite affordable, at $45 for a standard treatment cycle. It is chargeable, in line with our philosophy of co-payment.

We do not regulate the charges by the Pandemic Preparedness Clinics (PPCs) but generally our GPs are price competitive and their fees are largely affordable. Those who need subsidised care can get it at the polyclinics. Let me assure Members that the lower-income families with Influenza A (H1N1-2009) or, for that matter, any other disease, will all be helped, if they have difficulty paying their medical bills. Medisave, MediShield and Medifund – the three Ms – are specifically designed for this purpose.

Mr Speaker, I would like to thank the Ministry of Health for doing an excellent job in helping Singaporeans battle Influenza A (H1N1-2009) pandemic. I would like to ask the Minister one question which is, whether there are any clear and timely guidelines to the PPCs on when to offer Influenza A (H1N1-2009) testing. The reason I ask this is because there were reports in the papers that patients were turned away, treated symptomically and later found to have Influenza A (H1N1-2009) infection. There are down stream effects such as the duration of MCs to be given, whether the need for Tamiflu prophylaxis for the close contacts in the family as well as to prevent the further spread of the disease to the surrounding family members.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we do issue guidelines to the PPCs and, in fact, we have organised several workshop sessions for the GPs. More than 500 of them have come forward to take part in this PPC network and we thank them for their service. The reasons for some of the confusing media reports were because we

were in transition then. Remember all these happened just only in the last three months. We went through a lot, but it was just three months ago when this novel virus suddenly appeared. Inevitably, there was some "clumsiness" in implementation but, by and large, we have stabilised.

What the guidelines are focusing now are on high-risk patients. As a doctor, Dr Lam knows that it is very difficult to make, without laboratory testing, a distinction between ordinary influenza and this particular strain, as the symptoms are practically identical. So, short of doing a laboratory test, we cannot establish whether it is due to Influenza A (H1N1-2009). But now that we know the mild or moderate risk nature of this virus, we can be a little bit more relaxed as to whether we make a mistake or not in the classification. Critically, we focus on the high-risk groups, certainly pregnant women, those with transplant history or with renal failure, etc. We can then focus our mind on their condition and, if necessary, admit them to the hospitals for testing.

MCs are the same thing. In the earlier days, we were not sure how long the period ought to be and therefore there were some inconsistencies. But I think, by and large, the system would have stabilised by now.

Sir, I would like to ask a supplementary question. The Minister mentioned that the supply of Tamiflu will not be enough. Are there efforts to try and increase the supply? Some countries like the UK, for instance, have decided to provide the vaccinations to almost the entire population. Is that feasible and desirable in Singapore's context? If not, is it practical or possible to focus on the high-risk groups and to vaccinate them in view

of the fact that there may be a more virulent strain of this virus that may develop in later months?

There have been a lot of media reports on what different countries intend to do. Some of the media reports quote statements by pharmaceutical companies. I suggest that we take it with a pinch of salt, although we should not take too much salt as it is bad for your heart. The reality is there is a lot of uncertainty over when we will get this vaccine. And the key question is: Will it be safe? Will it be effective? Like all new drugs, we do need time and proper clinical trials to decide whether the drugs that we will be injecting into people are safe and effective. And all those studies take time. I doubt there will be any country which will go straight into vaccinating its population, let alone, in large numbers. Instead, many talk in terms of getting access to the supply of vaccines as an insurance policy. But whether you decide to start vaccinating, they will take it as a second-order decision. And we will be taking the same approach here.

Singapore, being small, is at an advantageous position, as our needs are not that big. But for countries with a huge population, inevitably, they will have to prioritise. WHO gathered a group of experts, two weeks ago, and they published a set of very useful guidelines, totally unpoliticised, based purely on clinical arguments, setting out the priorities. Those at the top of the priority will be essential workers – to make sure that essential services can continue to function – including hospitals and the Home Team, for example, in the case of Singapore. And beyond the essential personnel, for the general population, we will start targeting the high risk groups. So, definitely, pregnant women will be quite high up on the priority, kids with other underlying medical conditions will also be given the priority.

Last question, Mdm Cynthia Phua.

Sir, I would like to ask the Minister whether he could consider a dedicated website for such epidemics. The reason is I notice that MOH does have in the website itself certain issues related to Influenza A (H1N1-2009). But you may want to go into the details and also the concerns of the people at each stage of the epidemic, for example, currently, the use of Tamiflu, whether it is a preventive measure or it is a cure. Such matters are of concern to people at each

stage of the epidemic. If you have a dedicated website, then there could be some interactive communication with the people.

Sir, that is certainly a sound suggestion, and we did do that. We started a "flu.gov.sg" website. The associated website, whether it is from the Ministry of Health or some other Ministries, will also point towards that website.

So, information is available, including the type of questions that Mdm Phua mentioned. I do not think Singaporeans were poorly informed in this particular exercise. As I said, the main media did a very good job, and so did the new media. Periodically, we do surveys on Singaporeans, how they react to this Influenza A (H1N1-2009). By and large, I would say the awareness level is very high.

4. Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Manpower with unemployment rate remaining high in the first quarter of 2009, what other measures can the Government undertake to help the unemployed.

Mr Speaker, Sir, as the economy contracted, the seasonally adjusted overall unemployment rate rose to 3.3% in March 2009, from 2.5% in December 2008.

The Government acted quickly and decisively to roll out the $20.5 billion Resilience Package during the Budget this year. Initiatives like the Jobs Credit, the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) and the Tripartite Guidelines on Managing Excess Manpower have helped companies to cut costs and save jobs. The Government has also brought forward some of the hirings for the public sector, making available some 18,000 jobs over these two years, in addition to the jobs in the private sector.

To help unemployed Singaporeans find jobs, WDA, NTUC's e2i, the CDCs as well as the CET Centres have stepped up efforts to better reach out and assist jobseekers on their employment and training needs. In just six months since SPUR started, more than 19,000 jobseekers have been placed into jobs, significantly more than the 13,000 for the whole of 2008. In addition, WDA had in May introduced SPUR-JOBS, a scheme to encourage recruitment and retention of trainees of SPUR and other WDA CET programmes. Within just one month, 50 companies have committed to hire 1,200 local workers in various industries such as retail, finance, infocomm, maritime and logistics.

In this downturn, more PMETs have been affected compared to previous recessions. This is why we have implemented the Professional Skills Programme (PSP), including the PSP Traineeships (PSPT), to help PMETs and fresh graduates enhance their skills and employment prospects. As of end-May 2009, about 36,000 PMETs have been

trained or committed to training under PSP.

This package of measures has been effective in reducing retrenchment and unemployment rate as well as help unemployed find jobs. We will continue to focus on helping companies and workers tap on these measures. While the Government and unions can do their best to help, a successful placement can only be achieved if both jobseeker and employer have realistic expectations. WDA, the Career Centres and NTUC's e2i have a total of 25,000 job openings in their job bank presently, and are doing their best to try and match Singaporeans to these jobs.

My Ministry will continue to monitor the situation closely and, where necessary, introduce new programmes to help workers and job seekers.

Sir, I have three supplementary questions for the Minister. According to the Straits Times dated 4th July, there were a total of 27,000 jobseekers registered with the Career Centres but they could not fill the 20,000 immediate vacancies in their job bank. There appears to be a mismatch of skills. How can MOM help to resolve this issue?

I would like to ask the Minister: how do we account for those PMETs who are undergoing training to set up their own businesses? Do we include their businesses under the category of "employment"? How many of these PMETs have indeed moved to that category of self-employment?

My second supplementary question has got to do with the Career Centres that are facilitating their outreach to offer better job-matching service to PMETs. Feedback indicates that very qualified

candidates are asked to consider vacancies such as butlers, waiters, security guards. Though many of these PMETs are prepared to take up the lower-paying jobs, they balk at actually being given this kind of job offers. How can we ensure a refinement in the job-matching service that we are providing?

I would also like to ask the Minister this. Apparently, there is feedback that when these PMETs do not go for job interviews referred by the Career Centres, they will be given warning that they will not be considered for future job vacancies. This has resulted in a lot of fears and concerns. I am just wondering how we can actually guide the Career Centres to do a better job.

Sir, Mdm Ho is correct that there are about 27,000 or 28,000 jobseekers in our databank. But, today, we have 25,000 jobs available for them. The issue is how we can match them better. Over the last few months, the CDCs and the Career Centres that we have set up have enhanced the job-matching capability by providing job counselling, training and upgrading. It is important for us to remind our jobseekers and employers that they must have realistic expectations. Some of the jobseekers are not job ready. And when they are not job ready, our career counsellors will profile them, identify their needs, and some of them will need to go through some basic employability training to acquire the basic skills in employment, such as how to attend interviews, how to prepare their CVs, how to present themselves, and how to be more self-confident.

Through some of these programmes, we are gradually helping these workers find jobs. I mentioned earlier that we have placed close to 20,000 jobseekers over the last six to seven months. I think we are making progress, but there is still a lot of work to be done and we will continue

to press on with our efforts to reach out to these unemployed and help them adapt to the working environment and match them to jobs.

The second question refers to PMETs who have established new businesses. When we look at unemployment data, we are basically asking the surveyed candidates whether they are looking for a job and whether they already have a job. If a PMET has started a new business, he will be concentrating on his business and will not be looking for a job. Therefore, when we do the survey, he is unlikely to reply that he is looking for a job. In that case, he will not be in the unemployed data when we do our survey. That is how the survey is done. In a nutshell, for PMETs who already started on a new business, generally, they will not be included in the unemployment statistics.

Mdm Ho also asked how we can refine our job-matching services, especially for those PMETs who refuse to go for job interviews and whether we threaten them. Sir, the truth is that there are quite a lot of workers that we need to help, and we want to focus on workers who are prepared to be helped. We try our best to match them to jobs and arrange interviews for them. But if jobseekers are unwilling to go for interviews, it will take up a lot of our resources and it is better for us to focus on those who are willing to be helped. Therefore, we would like to remind jobseekers to cooperate with our career counsellors. When we arrange interviews for our jobseekers, we encourage them to go for these interviews. If they have problems managing the interviews, like the timing is not suitable because they have other commitments, we try our best to reschedule our interviews to suit their needs. Sometimes, we even organise interviews and job fairs within the training centres so that the potential employers can come to the training centres to meet up with our trainees while they are

undergoing training, and they do not have to make separate arrangement for interview. So, there and then, in situ, right where they are trained, they have an opportunity to meet up with potential employers. This is how we facilitate job-matching at our Career Centres. We have tried very hard and we would appeal to our jobseekers to cooperate with us and help us to help themselves too.

We will continue to look at ways to refine and improve our career counselling and career matching services at our Career Centres. Of course, there is room for us to continue to improve, and we would certainly welcome feedback and suggestions from Members as well as the jobseekers.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to ask the Minister if he is aware of a recent survey that reported more companies indicating their intention to increase hiring. I would like to ask if the Minister could comment on this and whether he expected the unemployment rate to be reduced anytime soon.

Sir, some of the companies are increasing their hiring. In fact, even during the last three months, during the depth of the recession, there were companies still hiring. But I would caution against premature optimism. It is important for us to continue to be vigilant and continue to work hard at creating jobs and preparing our workers, upgrading them, so that they are more employable. When these job opportunities are created and companies are beginning to hire, workers will then be ready to tap on these new job opportunities.

The outlook remains uncertain, particularly this quarter as well as the next quarter. Whether the hiring will be sustained will depend a lot on their order books over the next two quarters. Although some sectors may be hiring, it is still not broad based. When I talked to

the companies, anecdotally, most of them are unable to see far beyond the third or fourth quarter. So I think it is important for us to continue to press on with our various measures to upgrade our workers, prepare them and enhance their skills as well as employability. This will benefit us in the long term. And when the economy really recovers, when there are more job opportunities, these workers will then be ready to tap on these opportunities.

Mr Zaqy, last question.

At the Meet-the-People Session, I still do come across residents who have gone to the CDC asking for jobs. They have also done what the CDC has asked, like they have gone for the SPUR and WDA-sponsored training. Yet after three or six months, they are unable to get jobs even after going for interviews. So this is a group of people that have been cooperative and gone through the process and yet somehow we are not able to help them. I am just wondering whether MOM has done a study of the profiles in its database to see whether we need a different measure to tackle this problem. Because I suspect they are the bottom of the barrel and we probably need a different strategy for them.

Mr Speaker, yes, indeed, within our Career Centres, we do study the profiles of our jobseekers. There will be some jobseekers who find it more difficult to find jobs for a variety of reasons. Skills mismatch is one; familiarity with a new sector is another. Some of them may have to switch to a new sector or industry that they are not familiar with. Our Career Centres are quite mindful of this and they have made the extra effort to identify those who are facing greater difficulty. We provide them with intensive counselling and we also make special efforts to work with the employers to help

match them to their jobs. But for some of them, they may need a bit longer in order for them to find jobs which are suitable to themselves as well as matching the employers' needs.

The answer to the Member's question is "yes", we are mindful of them and we have put in additional efforts to focus on helping this particular group. But we also want to caution against labelling them, because it is important for us not to give them the impression that they are the difficult group and therefore one might entrench the mindset that it is difficult for them to find jobs. So we would rather treat them more or less the same but we pay special attention and put in additional effort to help them find jobs. This way, employers will not have the stigma on this group of workers who may find it more difficult to find jobs. I think we want to treat them as equally as possible but put in additional efforts to help those who may have more difficulty in looking for jobs.

5. Mdm Halimah Yacob asked the Minister for Manpower (a) how many Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) were retrenched in the first quarter of 2009; (b) what measures are there in place to assist retrenched PMETs; (c) how many have participated in the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) programmes; and (d) how many have been placed in jobs.

6. Mr Liang Eng Hwa asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry will consider giving training allowances under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) scheme to PMETs who are badly hit in this economic downturn and incentivising them to re-skill and up-skill.

Sir, a total of 4,730 Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMETs) were made redundant in the first quarter of 2009.

To help PMETs through this difficult time, we have put in place a number of measures under the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR). PMETs can enhance their skills and employment prospect by participating in the Professional Skills Programme (PSP) under SPUR where they can tap on skills upgrading courses which enable them to improve their skills and employability in a similar industry; skills conversion programmes which help them to switch career to a new profession; or tertiary upgrading through degree and post-graduate courses in selected areas, such as aerospace, chemicals, sustainable building design, social work, integrated circuit design and logistics and supply chain; and they can also tap on career and employability workshops to enhance their generic employment skills. Overall, as at end May 2009, about 36,000 PMETs have been trained or committed to training under PSP. Of these, about one-third are self-employed.

To Mr Liang Eng Hwa's question, there are currently over 40 conversion programmes catering to PMETs under the PSP. These cover a wide range of sectors, such as aerospace, creative industries, early childhood education, healthcare, manufacturing, tourism and retail. These Professional Conversion Programmes (PCP) provide trainees with a monthly training stipend of about $1,000 per month. The trainees are required to work in the industry for a minimum service period thereafter.

One example is 32-year old Ms Jeannie Elizabeth Koh who was working as an Operations Manager at Strategic Pte Ltd before she was retrenched in February 2009. She enrolled in the PCP for

Registered Nurses with the National University Hospital as her sponsor and receives a monthly training allowance of $1,000. She is now in the first year of the two-year course at Nanyang Polytechnic and will start work at NUH when she completes the course. To make the course more attractive to people like Jeannie, it has been fast-tracked to two years and is fully subsidised by WDA and the sponsoring hospital.

For PMETs who undertake SPUR courses other than PCPs, they still benefit from the generous 90% subsidy of the course fees.

At the May Day Rally this year, the Prime Minister announced further assistance for PMETs affected by the downturn. Firstly, the absentee payroll cap under SPUR was increased from $6 to $10 per hour to support training for PMETs. Secondly, we launched the PSP traineeship scheme to provide retrenched PMETs with internship opportunities in sectors with good growth potential so as to equip them with relevant job experience and enhance their employability. As at end-May 2009, about 110 companies have committed to offering 1,200 traineeships under this scheme.

PMETs can approach the career centres at the Community Development Councils (CDCs) and NTUC's e2i, which work with WDA to assist them in meeting their employment and training needs. In the first six months since SPUR was launched, about 2,600 PMETs have been placed into jobs via various initiatives under SPUR, including efforts by the career centres at the CDCs and NTUC's e2i. There are still jobs available in various sectors such as education, childcare, tourism, F&B and public administration.

My Ministry will continue to monitor the situation closely and will provide more

targeted help, should the situation warrant it.

Could I ask the Minister for his assessment of whether the problems affecting the PMETs will become worse? Do we see the PMETs becoming a bigger challenge for us, in terms of those who are unemployed in the current economic situation that we are faced with? I would also like to ask the Minister what more can be done in order to assist the PMETs because I have heard the programmes being mentioned, but the general sense on the ground is that the support and help or the infrastructure for PMETs is a lot less established compared to that for non-PMET workers who have lost their jobs or in need of help. This also applies for PMETs who are in need of support to move from sectors that are perceived as not doing well and want to move to sectors that are doing better because their jobs are in jeopardy. What assistance is going to be rendered to them?

Sir, I think the outlook, as I said, remains uncertain. But I believe if we can work together with our tripartite partners, the unions, the employers' federation and also with the job seekers, we will be able to contain the problem, ie, to minimise the number of PMETs affected by retrenchments and to minimise the number of PMETs that remained unemployed. But PMETs generally have greater difficulties looking for new jobs, especially in a different industry because their skills, especially technical skills, are quite specialised. So it is important for us, as Mdm Halimah pointed out, to find ways to help them to switch career paths, especially from industries or specific sectors that are not growing, to sectors that have more opportunities today. We have quite a lot of conversion programmes – I mentioned

40. I also mentioned an example of a PMET who has successfully switched from an Operations Manager to the healthcare industry. These are some examples of successful conversions and we need to do more of these. I also mentioned earlier that the PMET programme has been enhanced over the last few months, in order to reach out and help them. But over the last few years, if you look back, most of the workers who were affected tended to come from the rank and file. This time round, the recession is likely to hit the PMETs more than previous recessions. By and large, if you look at the macro picture, the rank-and-file workers are also being affected, and therefore while we focus on helping the PMETs, we must not ignore the needs of the rank-and-file workers as well. I think we need to take a balanced approach. While we reach out to help the rank and file, we also have specialised programmes like PSP to reach out and help the PMETs. We will continue to work with our tripartite partners to see how we can improve the effectiveness of all these programmes that we have put in place.

Mr Liang, one last question.

Sir, the financial and social impact faced by the unemployed PMETs is not any less dire compared to the low skilled workers. I would like to ask the Minister whether the Ministry will review the criteria for awarding of the training allowance under the SPUR, in particular, doing away with using the simple cut-off of the "A" level qualification to allocate the training allowance. And, secondly, relating to PMETs, can the Minister shed some light with regard to the Ministry's efforts to tighten controls on the S-Pass and whether, in the Minister's view, a more discerning S-Pass criterion is needed to improve the employment prospects of Singaporean PMETs in this downturn?

Sir, with regard to the training allowance for workers who have undergone training, the purpose of the training allowance is not really to address the daily cost of living of the unemployed. We have other programmes, like ComCare Fund, and for the individuals, we have also provided GST credits and various rebates to help them deal with their cost of living. The main purpose of the training allowance is to help the trainee overcome some of the costs related to the training, like transport cost, and so on. I think it is important for us to bear that in mind. For PMETs who are going for longer-term courses, especially the various conversion courses, many of them, as I mentioned in the example I quoted, do receive a monthly stipend even if they are PMETs. As the Member pointed out, those who have more than "A" level qualifications, and on a diploma course, they will also be granted a stipend of up to $1,000. So the programme is in place. With regard to the controls on S-Pass holders, I mentioned earlier this year during the COS that we are enhancing the quality of S-Passes. We have raised the quality bar – the admission criteria for S-Passes. This is important as part of our overall strategy to upgrade the quality of our workforce. We have provided training and upgrading opportunities for our local workforce. For foreign workforce, we also have to continue to enhance the quality by raising the entry bar, by raising the qualification that is needed to be granted S-Passes. So through these various measures, we will strike a delicate balance between foreign workers and local workers to make sure that the foreign workforce in our midst will continue to contribute and augment our local workforce so that we can support economic growth in the long term.

7. Mr Seah Kian Peng asked the Prime Minister in light of the Civil Service's

announcement that it will be looking to fill 18,000 jobs in the next two years, whether he will provide an update on the number of new hires in the public service.

8. Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Prime Minister if any of the 18,000 public sector jobs to be created are already available and, if so, (i) what publicity campaigns have been conducted to raise awareness of these job vacancies; (ii) how many of these jobs have been taken up; and (iii) how many people have applied so far.

Mr Speaker, Sir, may I have your permission to take Question Nos. 7 and 8 together?

Yes.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I informed the House in February this year that the Public Service expects to hire 18,000 persons over the next two years. I also informed Members that we would continue to hire people with the right skills, values and attitudes, and would not compromise standards.

From January to May this year, the Public Service and related agencies hired a total of 13,083 persons. This comprises 7,485 officers in the Ministries and statutory boards, 3,869 in the restructured hospitals, 1,438 in the universities and 291 kindergarten teachers. The numbers recruited include both fresh school leavers and mid-career officers.

The majority of those hired in the public sector were employed by the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). We expect the total number recruited to continue to increase

in the coming months as Government agencies are still actively recruiting.

To increase public awareness on the jobs available, Government agencies have been conducting recruitment talks, career fairs, career seminars and exhibitions. Agencies have also worked with partners like the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) and NTUC to match suitable candidates in their database to public sector jobs. For example, recently in June, five Government agencies (LTA, NEA, MOM, WDA and MFA) partnered the Southwest Community Development Council (CDC) to hold a recruitment drive targeting Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians for 300 of their vacancies.

The public sector has a central job portal at www.vog.gov.sg. Job seekers can easily view vacancies for jobs across all Government agencies at this website and apply for jobs. The portal also contains information about upcoming recruitment events and career talks.

The public sector still has vacancies in the education and healthcare sectors, and in the security agencies like the Home Team and MINDEF. We welcome capable and committed Singaporeans to come forward to take up these positions.

Sir, two supplementary questions. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his answers. I am heartened by the high take-up rate. My first question is, of the 13,083 jobs that were offered, how many were taken up by Singaporeans and I presume the rest are PRs? And my second question is whether, this being the Singapore Public Service, consideration and priority can be given to Singaporean citizens for the remaining almost 5,000 jobs that we are continuing to fill?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not have the breakdown between Singapore citizens, PRs and non-Singapore citizens and PRs. But I would expect that the vast majority of the jobs would have gone to the citizens and, if not them, PRs. So I expect that will continue particularly in agencies like the Home Team and the Ministry of Defence which are very large employers.

Sir, my second question is whether priority can be given to Singapore citizens.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I think the answer to that question is embedded in my reply already, which is that most of these jobs are in any case requiring citizens and PRs to do that.

Two supplementary questions for the Deputy Prime Minister. First, does the Minister envision the full 18,000 potential jobs to be filled and, second, would the Minister assure that those who have been offered jobs subscribe to the ethos of our Public Service?

Mr Speaker, Sir, we do desire to fill those 18,000 jobs, whether or not the applicants who come forward will apply for these specific jobs that are vacant,

and whether they meet the standards are important criteria. As I said earlier, we do not intend to compromise on standards and, hence, it is possible that some of the jobs may still be unfilled, in spite of the fact that there may be applicants.

Sir, just one supplementary question for the Deputy Prime Minister. Could he clarify whether the 13,000-plus jobs were to fill up existing vacancies or are these new jobs created by the public sector? And when the public sector says it wants to create 18,000, is it referring to 18,000 new jobs or does it include filling up of existing vacancies?

Some of the jobs are new, but some of the jobs are also to fill up existing vacancies.

The feedback I have got from some residents is that some of these jobs are really not for those doing mid-career switches – those in their 40s and 50s, especially the senior ones. Some of them have tried to apply but, the teaching profession, for example, says it prefers younger teachers. I assume that some jobs in the Defence and Home Affairs Ministries may be targeted at the younger age range as well. So for senior Singaporeans, are there jobs that they could perhaps try to apply in the public service?

In my understanding, the teaching service does employ quite a number of people who are basically doing career transitions, and the teaching service is one of the major employers out of these 18,000. I believe there are about 3,000 of them. So there is quite a considerable set of openings for these people.

The example that the Minister for Manpower just gave of a mid-career transition – of somebody who was in operations and then went into nursing - is another one such example where the public sector – in this case, a restructured hospital – has employed somebody in mid-career. So these things do go on, but I think that we should not look at the public service and say that we should reserve jobs for those who are doing mid-career switches because we must also consider that there are school leavers who are looking for jobs and we should not disadvantage them either.

9. Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for National Development with

the HDB Resale Price Index reaching a record level that is not seen since 1990, what can the Government do to assist homebuyers of such flats.

Mr Speaker, the HDB Resale Price Index (RPI) has fluctuated within the range of about plus 1% and minus 1% in the last few quarters. This suggests that HDB resale prices have stabilised. Meanwhile, cash-over-valuation (COV) amounts have fallen, from a high of $22,000 in 4Q07 to below $5,000 in 2Q09, thus reducing the up-front cash needed. With generous housing grants from the Government, first-time homebuyers who purchase a resale flat in non-mature estates currently use, on average, about 25% of their household income to service their housing loans. This is well below the affordability benchmark of 30%.

I would like to reiterate that the Government is committed to helping Singaporean families, especially young couples, to set up their first home and enjoy the benefits of home ownership. Flat buyers can choose to buy subsidised flats, either from HDB or the open market.

To assist first-timers in their resale flat purchase, the Government provides a generous CPF Housing Grant of $30,000. Those buying a flat near their parents or married children would get a higher grant of $40,000. In addition, first-timers whose household income is less than $5,000 per month may get an Additional CPF Housing Grant (AHG) of up to $40,000. Hence, a first-timer household buying a resale flat can enjoy up to $80,000 in grants. HDB also offers housing loans at concessionary interest rates to help buyers finance their flat purchase.

It is important for flat buyers to exercise financial prudence and buy a flat within their means. To help buyers plan carefully, HDB provides quarterly information on general resale price movements and the new housing supply expected in the next six months. Transacted prices of individual flats are also available on HDB's website. With the information, flat buyers can do their research and choose a flat that meets their budget, preferences and needs.

HDB will continue to monitor the demand and supply situation closely to ensure that public housing remains adequate and affordable. If necessary, HDB will increase the supply of new flats under its Build-to-Order (BTO) system to ensure sufficient housing supply. HDB will also continue to monitor the CPF Housing Grant and the AHG to ensure their effectiveness in meeting the housing needs of first-timers.

I have three questions for the Senior Minister of State. Granted the stability of the prices, in the event that the HDB resale flats do reach a price-level equivalent to the price of private property, which obviously goes against public housing being affordable, what can HDB do to ensure that these homes do not get priced out of reach?

Also, there is in fact a concern that the prices of HDB resale flats have been artificially propped up with inflated valuations, or they are an indication of a resurgent property market –

Mdm Ho, please be brief. We do not have much time left.

Yes. As such, should there be a cap to the increase in the prices of HDB resale flats? Can the Senior Minister of State clearly address this?

First of all, I have mentioned in my answer, the issue of the Housing Grant and AHG. In fact, Members of the House would remember that it is only in February that we have revised the AHG upwards, both in terms of quantum and the number of would-be eligible Singaporeans. We have lifted the eligible household income ceiling from $4,000 to $5,000, so that more first-timers are eligible for the AHG. It is only in February that we have made it effective and, therefore, we should really review its effectiveness later and let it work through the system.

We are also monitoring the affordability and we measure that by the percentage of the income that is used to finance the flats. As I have mentioned in my answer, at the moment, we are using, on the average, 25% of our income to service the loans, which to us is an indication of its affordability.

The other element that I would like to explain is that we do look at the supply of new HDB flats through our Build-to-Order (BTO) system. We will be releasing 8,000 units through the BTO system and, if necessary, we will increase the supply if we see that there is indeed some pent-up demand. But from one of the launches, Punggol Breeze, that we have seen recently in December 2008, we had some 300 units that were left without being subscribed. Everyone who has applied for a flat under that launch has been called up and yet we have 300 units left unsubscribed. So that shows that there is some demand but, perhaps, we are not seeing a real pent-up demand as the Member has described.

I think there has been some misunderstanding on how valuation has played a role. Valuation is not done by HDB. It is done by an independent valuer based on transacted price, so this is not an instrument in moving the prices of property one way or another. It is not

realistic to put a cap on prices. Someone who contributed to The Forum had recently said that it is not a bad thing for prices to be increasing over time because there are Singaporeans who have bought the property in the mid-nineties and they are waiting for the time for prices to reach the level at which they have bought their flats. We do want to see prices of property, especially HDB flats since 85% of Singaporeans own them, as a reflection of the wealth of Singaporeans and it is not such a bad idea for prices to move steadily over time. So I do not think it is realistic for us to put a cap to that.

10. Mrs Josephine Teo asked the Minister for Education (a) if he will provide the reasons for the expected steady state enrolment of the fourth university being reduced from 12,000 to 4,000; and (b) whether the target to provide 30% of each cohort with university education opportunities by 2015 will still be met.

11. Mrs Josephine Teo asked the Minister for Education (a) if he will outline the scope of partnership between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the fourth university; and (b) what steps are being taken to ensure that Singapore benefits from the partnership.

The Member asked if the target to provide for 30% of each cohort to enter our public universities will still be met. The short answer is "yes". That is by 2015, we will be on track and that has not changed. The Member also asked on specifics of our enrolment. Let me use this opportunity to clarify.

The Committee on the expansion of the university sector, which was tasked to find ways in which to achieve this increase from the current 25% to 30%, recommended two main ways to achieve

this. One was the establishment of a new university and, second, through the expansion of the Polytechnic-Foreign Specialised Institution programmes.

Let me speak on the new university first. It was recently announced that the university will partner the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a top Chinese university. MIT's involvement will be deep and extensive. Courses in modules which MIT will help to design are expected to be vigorous and are expected to stretch the students' capabilities. As such, students need to have the requisite academic standards to benefit from these programmes and we expect the admission standards of the new university to be high. All eligible Singaporeans who apply will be admitted, but we project that the new university will take in about 800 to 1,000 undergraduates each year at a steady state.

In our previous projections – the Member is correct – that one of the scenarios has a larger intake – about 2,000 a year – but this was before the specific US partner was confirmed. The smaller intake that we have now based our planning on, is realistic, considering the partnership with MIT in selecting students that will be best suited for the programmes. Together with the new university, the 30% cohort participation rate will be met through the establishment of the Singapore Institute of Applied Technology (SIAT) which will offer degree programmes and tie-ups with reputable foreign universities from around the world, in partnership with our polytechnics. The SIAT will create a new peak of excellence in our higher education landscape and, at the same time, expand opportunities available to students. The SIAT will provide around 2,000 full-time places annually by 2015. Polytechnic upgraders are expected to be able to obtain their degree from foreign universities after two years in SIAT, a shorter time compared to the length

required in existing public universities. We estimate that the Government will spend an estimated $1.6 billion to develop the SIAT over the next 10 years.

The Member asked for some details of MIT's involvement. As we all know, MIT is renowned internationally for its rigorous undergraduate education. It will help the new university develop an innovative science and technology curriculum, which will adopt best practices from MIT and have design as the integrating factor for different disciplines. MIT will also advise the university on its pedagogy and the academic structures.

In addition, MIT will also help kick-start the development on the new university's research capabilities. It will develop major research programmes that involve top-class faculty in partnership with the new university. MIT has committed to send its faculty to undertake teaching activities in research at the new university, and the newly recruited faculty of the new university here will spend up to a year in MIT participating in the activities on the MIT campus and collaborating with the MIT faculty in R&D. Student exchanges will also contribute to the close links between the two institutions.

I would like to assure Mrs Teo that the MIT leadership and faculty have expressed strong support for the partnership and the partnership will build on the strong educational and research linkages that already exist.

3.00 pm

Order. End of Question time.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No. 22(3), Written Answers to Question Nos. 12-14, 20-25, 27-29, 32, 36-38 and 41 on the

Order Paper are reproduced in the Appendix*. Question Nos. 15-19, 26, 30-31, 33-35, 39-40 and 42 have been postponed to the next available sitting of Parliament.]

*Cols. 867-898.

"to amend the Goods and Services Tax Act (Chapter 117A of the 2005 Revised Edition)",

recommendation of President signified; presented by the Second Minister for Finance (Mrs Lim Hwee Hua); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament, and to be printed.

"to amend the Legal Profession Act (Chapter 161 of the 2009 Revised Edition) and to make related amendments to the Patents Act (Chapter 221 of the 2005 Revised Edition) and the Singapore Academy of Law Act (Chapter 294A of the 1997 Revised Edition)",

presented by the Senior Minister of State for Law (Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee); read the First time; to be read a Second time on the next available sitting of Parliament, and to be printed.

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, this Amendment Bill will enable CPF Board to introduce CPF LIFE. It also amends existing provisions to be consistent with the Lease Buyback Scheme; further refines the Minimum Sum Topping-Up Scheme; aligns the CPF Act with the Mental Capacity Act; and

enables streamlining in the administration of the CPF.

CPF LIFE

I will first explain the amendments relating to the introduction of the Scheme to facilitate Lifelong Income For the Elderly (CPF LIFE).

Members may recall that CPF LIFE was debated in this House in 2008. To empower the Board to administer the CPF LIFE scheme, a new Part IIIB of the Act will be created. I will briefly describe the main features of CPF LIFE.

Eligibility

The scheme will be introduced for CPF members turning 55 from 2013, ie, for those who are aged 51 or younger this year. Members who have at least $40,000 in their Retirement Account (RA) will be automatically included while members with lower cash balances will be allowed to opt in. For older members, ie, those who turn 55 before 2013, I had announced in February this year that starting September 2009, the Board will offer CPF LIFE to them on an opt-in basis when they reach 55.

Members with severely impaired life spans are currently exempted from the Minimum Sum Scheme. Section 27K of the new Part IIIB will allow them to be similarly exempted from CPF LIFE.

Participation in Lifelong Income Fund at age 55

Sections 27L and 27N of the new Part IIIB set out the funding mechanism of CPF LIFE. When a member reaches the age of 55, a portion of his Retirement Account savings will be used to participate in an annuity scheme. This annuity, together with the remaining cash in his Retirement Account, provides the member with a monthly account from his drawdown age

for the rest of his life. The monies used to participate in the annuity will be held in a fund called the Lifelong Income Fund to be administered by the CPF Board. The proportion of RA savings to be used for the Fund will vary depending on the choice of the CPF LIFE Plans that they have chosen. Members only need to decide on the plan that suits his needs.

To recap, four CPF LIFE Plans will be offered to members. These four plans offer a range of trade-offs between the level of LIFE monthly income and the bequest amount. The default plan is the LIFE Balanced Plan. It will provide members with a balance between a reasonable level of retirement income, and some bequest amount if they pass away early.

LIFE premium and monthly income

Sir, the actual monthly income that members receive will depend on factors including interest rates and actual mortality experience, which will be reviewed from time to time. The Minister for Manpower will determine the monthly income based on these factors and as advised by the CPF Board to maintain the solvency of the Lifelong Income Fund.

Cessation of combined Minimum Sum Scheme

Sir, with the introduction of CPF LIFE, the Combined Minimum Sum Scheme (CMSS) is no longer relevant. Let me explain.

CMSS was a concession introduced together with the Minimum Sum Scheme in 1987. It allows couples aged 55 and above to jointly set aside only 1.5 times their Minimum Sum, and to withdraw the rest of their CPF savings. The rationale was that a couple living together would not require as much income as two single persons living alone. Should one of the members pass away, the surviving spouse

would be able to continue to draw on the balance. The spouses are, therefore, required to nominate each other as the beneficiary and this nomination cannot be revoked as long as they remain married. However, unlike CMSS, CPF LIFE is an individualised scheme where a member's monthly income will cease upon his death, and the surviving spouse can only rely on his or her own CPF LIFE income. We will, therefore, terminate CMSS in 2013 when CPF LIFE is introduced. Those who are already in the CMSS may continue to remain in the Scheme.

Maintaining relevance of the Minimum Sum Scheme

Sir, even with the introduction of CPF LIFE, not all members will participate in the Scheme. Members with cash balances below $40,000 may decide not to opt in. They will remain on the Minimum Sum Scheme with a fixed drawdown period.

When the Minimum Sum Scheme was introduced in 1987, the payout duration then was set at 20 years. This is because the average life expectancy at the drawdown age, which was 60 then, was 19 years. We have announced that the drawdown age will progressively be raised to 65 by 2013. One in two residents at age 65 today can expect to live beyond 20 years. Life expectancy is expected to increase even further by 2013. If left unchanged, the 20-year drawdown period in the Minimum Sum Scheme will become inadequate by 2013. There will, therefore, be a need to review the duration of the drawdown period to keep pace with the increasing life expectancy.

Administration of Lease BuyBack Scheme

Let me now move to the other changes in this Bill.

To help low-income elderly households living in smaller flats to unlock their

housing wealth, the Ministry of National Development launched the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS) in March this year. Under LBS, HDB will buy back the tail-end of the lease of the flat, leaving the members with a shorter 30-year lease. Part of the proceeds is then used to participate in CPF LIFE. This ensures that the member continues to enjoy a roof over their heads as well as financial security in old age.

To facilitate the use of the proceeds of a LBS transaction to participate in CPF LIFE directly, we are amending section 15 of the Act.

Allow top-ups to parents and grand-parents below 55

The third area of change is in the CPF Topping-Up rules. Sir, many Members in this House have spoken of the need to encourage family support in addressing the challenges of Singapore's ageing population and in securing the retirement adequacy of CPF members. My Ministry has been liberalising the rules of the Minimum Sum Topping-Up Scheme since 2005. We are amending section 18 of the Act to give effect to the announcement I had made in February this year. This will allow members to use their CPF savings to top up the CPF accounts of their parents and grandparents who are below 55 years old. With this amendment, CPF Board will be able to offer this additional facility from August 2009.

Align treatment of mentally incapacitated members in the CPF Act with that in the Mental Capacity Act 2008

The fourth area of change concerns CPF members who are mentally incapacitated. Sir, in 2008, the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) was passed. The Mental Capacity Act allows the court to make, amend or revoke wills on behalf of a mentally incapacitated person based on the principle that the court's decision shall

be made in the person's best interests. However, the court cannot, at present, affect a CPF nomination. Section 77 of the CPF Act will be amended to align the position of CPF nominations to that of wills under the MCA. The MCA will be amended to allow the court to make or revoke CPF nominations of mentally incapacitated persons. Correspondingly, the rules dealing with CPF nominations will also be amended to allow the courts to do this. We believe that the "best interest" principle embedded in the MCA will facilitate the appropriate distribution of a mentally incapacitated Member's CPF monies upon his death.

Streamlining the administration of the CPF Act

Finally, this Bill clarifies and streamlines the administration of the CPF Act in a few areas.

First, to allow CPF Board to make payment without the need for a Court order for small balances. Currently, when a nominee passes away before receiving the CPF monies which are due to him, CPF Board pays out the monies to the person authorised by the court to administer his estate according to a Court order. Section 25 will be amended to give CPF Board the discretion to make payment to a proper claimant of a deceased nominee without the need for a Court order when balances are small. This figure will be set at $9,000 initially. This minimises inconveniences, expedites payments and saves legal costs for the nominee's beneficiaries in claiming CPF monies.

Second, to clarify the extent of the Board's responsibility in cases where the Board is unaware that a nomination is no longer valid because of a subsequent marriage. Today, upon a member's death, CPF Board will conduct checks with the Registry of Marriages and the Registry of

Muslim Marriages to validate members' nominations before acting on the nomination. However, despite reasonable efforts to verify that the nomination is still valid, there remains a possibility that there exists a marriage that has the effect of revoking the nomination. For example, a member could be legally married outside Singapore or had a customary marriage before the enactment of the Women's Charter in 1961. The Board will not be aware of such a marriage if it has not been duly informed. Hence, we will amend section 25 of the Act to clarify that where the Board has exercised due diligence, but the deceased's CPF savings were wrongly paid under an invalidated nomination, the Board is discharged of any liability. However, this amendment does not prevent an interested party to recover the deceased's CPF savings from the nominee who received the money as a result of the error.

Third, to clarify the agency service role of the CPF Board. Sir, CPF Board has been involved in the administration of several national schemes including the disbursement of monies under the GST Offset Package and computation of employer subsidies under the Jobs Credit Scheme. As these agency projects are not directly related to the CPF, we are amending section 76(1) of the Act to make it clear that the Board may engage in such activities if it is in the public interest to do so.

Lastly, the Bill also makes a few clarifications and refinements to the CPF Act to avoid ambiguity and to align with current practices.

Sir, CPF LIFE and Lease Buyback are two major innovations that the Government has introduced to prepare Singaporeans for an ageing population. These schemes will help enable Singaporeans to look forward to and celebrate the prospect of greater longevity. The amendments in the Bill will,

among others, allow the introduction of these schemes.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

3.12 pm

Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of this Bill. A key amendment is the introduction of the CPF LIFE which will help to strengthen our social safety net as we can now look forward to an income for the rest of our lives instead of only for 20 years after retirement that is under the current regime. Condensing the scheme from 12 to four options is certainly a vast improvement as people were really confused on the options, but even with these four schemes, not everyone understands. There is still a significant number that we need to reach out to and I do urge the Ministry to continue with its outreach and education efforts.

I also support the Lease Buyback Scheme and also urge the Ministry to step up on its outreach efforts, so that elderly low-income Singaporeans can truly benefit from this Scheme.

Sir, I have a number of points which I wish to raise on this Bill. First, the impact of inflation on the CPF LIFE. Sir, a key concern over CPF LIFE is that the payments are fixed whereas the retirees' purchasing power is affected by the cost of living and inflation. This is a genuine concern, as although our inflation rate has been historically low, in 2008, it shot up to 6.5%. We are an open economy and import most of our products and, therefore, cannot be expected to insulate ourselves from the vagaries of price changes affecting food and other basic commodities here. But if CPF LIFE does not factor in inflation, then, over time, it

will become a less effective and meaningful scheme as purchasing power will be so badly eroded that the payment will not be sufficient to provide for a retiree’s basic needs. I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister how the Ministry intends to address this issue, if not in the short term, at least in the long term.

My next point, Sir, on CPF LIFE is on those excluded from the Scheme. CPF LIFE does not cover those who have less than $40,000 in their accounts. I would like to ask the Minister how many would fall under this category and how will they be assisted in planning for their retirement needs. This is indeed a major concern as based on the Low Wage Workers’ Report, the number of Singaporeans who are now working part-time or on contract work have increased, and this global trend will continue. With the economic cycles of boom and bust becoming shorter, companies will continue to look at ways of making their labour force very flexible by minimising their permanent liabilities. We have seen the income of those at the lowest 20th percentile stagnating and has even declined for some occupations.

As our low wage workers are the ones who need such a scheme the most as they are not likely to have discretionary savings or other assets, I would like to ask the Minister to study this issue carefully so that we can have a truly inclusive CPF LIFE scheme.

My next point, Sir, is on premiums. Under new section 27L of the Bill, the Minister is given the power to determine the amount of premiums to be imposed under the CPF LIFE scheme. As this is almost a compulsory scheme and we really want all Singaporeans to stay on the scheme, it is important that we keep the premiums affordable. Section 27N provides that any costs and expenses incurred by the Board in establishing and maintaining CPF LIFE would be deducted from the premiums. Hence, for premiums to remain affordable, it is imperative that

the Board keeps a tight lid on the costs of administering the scheme so that the bulk of the premiums will be used to provide a retirement income to Singaporeans. I would like to ask the Minister what safeguards are in place to ensure that premiums remain affordable. I would also like to suggest that, like the MediShield scheme where public consultations are conducted before any increase in premiums, the Ministry should also consult the public before contemplating any increase in the CPF LIFE premiums.

My next point on CPF LIFE, Sir, is on the issue of solvency. New section 27N(7) of the Bill provides that the CPF Board shall not make any payment under CPF LIFE unless the Lifelong Income Fund is solvent. Sir, while I can understand the legal basis for this provision, I find it quite disturbing to have it reflected in the Bill. My understanding is that even for commercial insurance companies, there are stringent MAS rules to ensure that insured funds are not jeopardised. And even in the worse case scenario when that happens, I suppose Singaporeans who are affected, while they may feel aggrieved, may still grudgingly accept it as these are commercial transactions. The relationship between the CPF Board and the CPF members, however, is not just a legal contract but, more significantly, it is a social contract as the Board has a social responsibility to manage CPF funds prudently in order to help Singaporeans meet their retirement needs. I have every confidence that this Government has every intention to fulfil its obligations no matter what it takes but one cannot be certain what will happen years down the road if we have a different government in power and how it will treat its obligations to Singaporeans. So, this clause is a cause for concern as it allows the Government to get out of its obligations and I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister what safeguards are in place to protect CPF members from the

risk of insolvency of the Lifelong Income Fund.

Sir, my next point on the CPF LIFE is on the amendment to allow CPF members to use their CPF savings to top up the accounts of their parents and grandparents who are below 55 years of age. This is a good amendment as it will make it easier for younger Singaporeans to provide for the retirement needs of their parents and grandparents but it applies only to those who already have the minimum sum in their savings. I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister how many CPF members will qualify to make such top–ups for their family members.

I now move on to new section 25(6) of the CPF (Amendment) Bill. Under section 25(6), Sir, it provides that if a member’s nomination is revoked by marriage, and the Board, in ignorance of the marriage, purports to pay any amount out of the Fund on the death of the member in accordance with the revoked nomination, the Board will nevertheless be discharged from all liability for making the payment. The purpose of the existing provision is very clear. It is meant to protect the spouse and children of CPF members who forgot to change their nominations after their marriage from hardship. The new section 25(6), in my view, will weaken that protection. The spouse and children of a deceased CPF member should not be made to suffer for the mistake made by the Board.

I have heard the Minister's explanation. The Minister's explanation is that there is in existence a process where the Board communicates with the Registry of Marriages (ROM) and/or the Registry of Muslim Marriages (ROMM) but there could be other cases that fall outside the ambit of the ROM and ROMM. I would like to ask the Minister what are these cases. Have there been any cases where through ignorance, monies have been paid to persons other than the spouses, family members and children of the deceased

CPF member? And I would like to ask the Minister to clearly look at this provision because the concern is that it is a very broad clause which exonerates the Board from ignorance in the event that it pays to a nominee of the deceased member if the Board is ignorant of the fact that the CPF member is married. It is such a very broad provision. If the intention is to cover only a few cases, as in the majority of cases people would be married under the ROM or ROMM, then the question is whether we really need such a provision. The concern is that the Board should also exercise due diligence, not just in cases where marriages are registered under the ROM but also the ROMM. Could there be some mechanisms developed by the Board to ascertain whether the marriages are registered before making payments to the nominees of the deceased member whose nomination has been revoked because of his marriage?

So I would like to ask the Minister to really examine this provision closely because the concern is that it will deprive the spouses and children of the deceased member as a result of this amendment and certainly we do not want the spouses and children of the deceased member to suffer because of the ignorance of the Board of the marriage.

Sir, let me just say a few words in Malay.

(In Malay): [For vernacular speech, please refer to Appendix A*.] Mr Speaker, I rise in support of the Central Provident Fund (Amendment) Bill. The key amendment is the introduction of the CPF LIFE scheme that will help build up the retirement income of Singaporeans. Under CPF LIFE, we can receive income from the age of 65 years for as long as we live.

Another key amendment is the Lease Buyback Scheme that will help elderly

Singaporeans who live in 2-room and 3-room flats to unlock the value of their flats and use it for their retirement needs.

There are three points I would like to touch on regarding the amendments.

Firstly, in order to have a good retirement income, we must have a job and receive a stable income so that we can continue saving money in our CPF accounts. Without a stable income, we will not be able to save sufficiently to meet our needs when we are old, because CPF members must have $40,000 in their CPF savings in order to be included into CPF LIFE. For some who are facing the current crisis, they will face difficulties as they may have lost their jobs or face pay cuts. Even so, we have until 2013 to save up for the scheme and we must take advantage of this. If we lost our jobs, get help quickly, undergo re-training and do not be too choosy when looking for work, so that we do not stay unemployed too long. The longer we are unemployed, the more difficult it will be for us to get jobs. For those working on a contract or part-time basis, they will be drawn to ask or agree with the company’s suggestion to increase the take-home pay but without any CPF contribution. We must reject all these. We must all make it a habit to set aside part of our income each month for our retirement needs. Our low-income workers can also make use of the Workfare Income Supplement Scheme which will provide an additional source of income that will mostly be placed into their CPF accounts.

Secondly, this Bill stresses on the importance of financial planning. Financial planning not only refers to the act of saving money, but also on managing spending and planning our short term and long term needs. It requires us to differentiate between "needs" and "wants". "Needs" refers to things that are essential to have, while "wants" refers to a desire that will never be satiated and

will never end. The more we control our "wants", the more savings we will have for our children’s education, old age, medical needs and other unexpected things. For example, before we decide to allocate 50% of our income for the next 20 years to buy a house, we must ask ourselves how changes like job loss, having more children, children’s higher education or serious illnesses can affect our capacity to pay off any debts. We have begun a programme called "Smart Spending" under the Community Leaders’ Forum, which is a good starting point. But even so, it is all about our own prudence and discipline.

Thirdly, our community must know and understand well the aims and meaning of the Lease Buyback Scheme so that we can make use of it. It aims to help elderly Singaporeans fulfil their retirement needs because part of the amount is set aside for the CPF LIFE Scheme. I feel that many people in the Malay community are still unaware of this scheme. Some are also worried that if anything happens to them within the period of 30 years, the balance amount will not go to their children. More efforts must be made to increase our community’s awareness and understanding towards this scheme, so that our elderly can reap the benefits from CPF LIFE and have a more stable retirement income.

With this, Mr Speaker, I support the Amendment Bill.

*Cols. 915-918.

Sir, the recently introduced CPF (Amendment) Bill shows a lot of effort and thought put into it. Kudos to the Minister and his team who never fail to give up trying to make life better for all Singaporeans.

I would like to commend the changes to the CPF (Amendment) Bill that allow members to top up their parents’ or grandparents’ CPF special accounts even

if the parent or grandparent has not yet attained the age of 55. The CPF Act has seen many changes over the years to allow for top-ups by family members, starting by gradually increasing the scope of the types of family members who are qualified to top up relatives’ accounts, and then now by removing the age requirement for the recipients. This is the right direction to go. With the introduction of the Lifelong Income Scheme, it would be prudent for family members to help senior members of the family to accumulate sufficient funds in their accounts to ensure a secure retirement through the purchase of adequate annuity plans provided under the Lifelong Income Scheme.

Sir, this move to allow members to top up the CPF accounts of their family members shows that our efforts to boost a sound family structure, coupled with traditional Asian values, have paid off. Also with family size getting smaller, there is an increased need to encourage family members to support each other in times of hardship.

Our CPF safety net is the way to go. The Straits Times headlined a story, "Basic care in Britain to cost retirees $48,000." Britain is trying to do what we embarked upon long ago. The Green Paper outlining the British government’s proposals may or may not see fruition but this shows that the Singapore Government was far ahead of its time and bold enough to take the right path.

Sir, with all due respect, I do have a few queries with respect to the Lifelong Income Scheme. The queries, I hope, will only help make the scheme better.

First, the Amendment Bill appears to enable the Minister wide discretionary powers to decide the premium payable by members under the Lifelong Income Scheme, as well as the monthly payouts under the Scheme. I believe that the

reasons for doing so include the need to specify the plans accordingly for different types of members. This discretion can be delegated to the CPF Board for it to manage the various plans under the Lifelong Income Scheme. Sir, I worry that the public may perceive this wide discretion as a licence for the Ministry or CPF Board to change premiums and payouts at will.

Sir, may I suggest that before the plans roll out, a more thorough review be done to see if changes to the premiums and payouts are really necessary? This will help reassure the public that the Government is not trying to siphon off their CPF monies, but rather trying to provide them with a lifelong monthly income.

Second, I question the need for discretion for the Minister to prescribe the age at which the Scheme applies. There should not be frequent changes to the age at which the Scheme comes into force. Because retirement planning has to take place far ahead of the retirement age, it would be helpful to members if there is an element of certainty in knowing the age at which the Scheme kicks in. It will definitely help to make an educated choice and make the necessary preparations for their own secure retirement, in conjunction with the Lifelong Income Scheme, and not over- or under-prepare the money that they may require for a happy retirement. These people who helped make Singapore what it is today, surely deserve that consideration.

Third, I note that the Lifelong Income Fund must be solvent before monthly income can be paid out. On the words of the proposed sections, it appears that payouts are thus not guaranteed. This is against the whole purpose of having a Lifelong Income Scheme, which aims to

provide the elderly poor with a secure retirement income for life! Where is the security when payouts are not guaranteed? I urge the Minister to explain the reasons for enacting such a clause.

Still, in relation to the Lifelong Income Fund, clause 14 and new sections 27K and 27L state the amount to be paid out to relevant members, with the requirement that the Lifelong Income Fund be solvent before payouts can be made, and the discretion granted to the Minister or the CPF Board to determine the amount payable to relevant members. It appears that payouts may vary over time. Perhaps this will depend on how well the Lifelong Income Fund is invested as well as the state of the markets at any point in time. Can the Minister please explain whether this will be the case in practice and, if so, will payouts be reduced when the Fund is not doing well due to economic downturns or poor investment decisions?

On this note, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to participate in this discussion. I wish to raise two suggestions with regard to this amendment that is tabled. I am pleased to note that we are actively looking at means to sustain post-retirement financing for an ageing population. The proposed CPF Lifelong Income Scheme seeks to address an important gap in many Singaporeans’ retirement plans. As we continue to leverage on the CPF Scheme to provide for the post-retirement needs of our ageing population, we must be cognisant of the group amongst us that continues to be excluded from the Scheme. I would like to ask the Minister if there are provisions to systematically include full-time homemakers and supplementary wage workers into the CPF Scheme.

I applaud the amendments introduced on 1st November 2008, which liberalised three important aspects of the CPF that allow cash top-ups from an expanded pool of eligible contributors and allow top-ups for recipients who are now below 55 years old, and the removal of an annual cap in the amount contributed. May I suggest that we consider moving one step further – to allow regularised contributions to the CPF accounts of homemakers, either by the spouse or by adult children. I am referring to a GIRO system where standing orders can be issued to facilitate monthly top-up to the CPF account.

There are two advantages to this proposal. First, it will allow the homemakers’ CPF accounts to grow gradually over their life course, as they make irreplaceable and invaluable contributions to the family. It is much easier to achieve savings by accumulating smaller amounts over a longer period of time than it is for family members to provide a lump-sum top-up at a critical point to meet the annuity premium demands. Second, in recognition that social relationships even in marriages are not always sustained throughout the life course, regular contributions will not disadvantage the homemaker should the marital union dissolve. Just as those of us who are in the workforce expect to receive regular contributions to our CPF fund from our employers for services rendered, it is only fair that homemakers can also receive regular contributions from their spouses or children for their critical domestic role. The amounts contributed will remain in the homemaker’s account, as recognition of his or her important work rendered to the family.

Homemakers – be it wives or husbands – play critical roles in our society. Their domestic work, because of its altruistic nature, is often rendered invisible because they do not receive tangible financial rewards. But it is real

work, and it is important work that weaves together the public and private spheres of our society. As we continue to leverage on and enhance the CPF Scheme to meet the financial and health care needs of our population, it is timely that we work conscientiously to include all segments of our community in this important Scheme.

Aside from homemakers, there is another group that requires our intervention. This is the group of low-income families who may not have sufficient monies amassed in their CPF accounts to qualify for the proposed CPF Lifelong Income Scheme. To help this group of vulnerable poor, may I suggest that the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports design innovative help programmes that facilitate these families' membership in the CPF Lifelong Income Scheme. For example, instead of providing directly financial handouts, the MCYS can leverage on the CPF Lifelong Scheme and offer help to the poor through meeting annuity premiums. As we move towards a more comprehensive system of coverage for Singapore, it is even more critical for us to ensure that no group is omitted from the Lifelong Income Fund. If we fail to do so, we may inadvertently entrench social inequality.

Sir, these comments aside, I support the Bill.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I thank Mdm Ho, Mdm Halimah and Assoc. Prof. Straughan for their support. Let me clarify some of the concerns that they raised. Mdm Ho Geok Choo said that the age at which the Scheme applies should not be frequently changed. First, let me assure Members that all CPF members born in 1958 or later, will be automatically included in CPF LIFE if they have at least $40,000 cash in their retirement account when they turned 55. As I have explained earlier, a portion of the members' retirement account savings will

be used to participate in an annuity scheme. It is the age at which this annuity kicks in that will be prescribed by the Minister. This age defines the four CPF LIFE plans offered to the members. However, in making their choices, members only need to consider the level of monthly income and bequest amount. The age at which the annuity kicks in is secondary. All CPF LIFE plans will provide members with a monthly income starting from the drawdown age for as long as they live.

Mdm Halimah Yacob and Mdm Ho suggested that the payments of CPF LIFE monthly income should be guaranteed. Mdm Ho also sought clarifications on the variability of the LIFE premium and monthly income and whether the monthly income would depend on investment performance. Let me reiterate that CPF LIFE should be self-funded and sustainable. Therefore, guaranteeing the level of monthly income is not feasible. Rather, CPF LIFE monthly income will be adjusted regularly, taking into account interest rates and mortality experience, to ensure the solvency of the Lifelong Income Fund. In other words, the Minister cannot make changes at will but must base his decisions on sound actuarial principles to ensure that fund solvency will not be compromised. CPF LIFE members can rest assured that they will receive payouts for as long as they live.

Mdm Halimah raised concerns regarding the affordability of CPF LIFE premiums. Let me clarify that Life premiums do not affect affordability. LIFE premiums refer to the portion of the members' retirement account savings that will be used for the annuity component of CPF LIFE for the plan that they chose. In determining the LIFE premiums, the Minister is, in effect, determining the proportion of retirement account savings that will be used to participate in the

annuity. How much a member receives as a monthly income depends on the member's total retirement account savings. I would also like to assure Members that we will keep the cost of administration low, which is one reason why CPF Board will be the single administrator of the Scheme. This is a key principle in designing CPF LIFE, as recommended by the National Longevity Insurance Committee (NLIC).

Mdm Halimah and Assoc. Prof. Straughan asked how we are helping CPF members who do not have sufficient savings to participate in CPF LIFE. We estimate that around 70% of the active CPF members turning age 55 in 2013, will have at least $40,000 in retirement account savings. About 84% will have at least $20,000. However, let me clarify that there is no minimum balance required to participate in CPF LIFE. All members, regardless of their CPF balances, can opt in to the scheme. CPF LIFE is meant to address the retirement needs of most members. However, members with very low balances may not be in a position to maximise their benefits from CPF LIFE.

There are various schemes to help these members. Through Workfare, for example, the Government provides an income supplement to older low-wage workers of which a portion is credited into the recipient's CPF to shore up retirement savings. We are also encouraging workers to continue working past the age of 55, to build up their savings. Workfare gives older low-wage workers an added incentive to do so. For members with low CPF savings, who want to participate in the LIFE scheme, the Government will help them to do so. Members with less than $20,000 in their retirement accounts will receive a pro-rated L-Bonus upon opting in to the scheme. They will enjoy the full L-Bonus if they top up their retirement account savings to at least $20,000.

Family members and even friends and employers can also help as we have liberalised the Minimum Sum topping up scheme. About 17,000 top-ups were made in 2008. Since 1st April 2009, a CPF member below age 55 can now also make top-ups using his CPF savings as long as he has net balances in excess of the prevailing Minimum Sum. From 1st August 2009, we will also remove the age restriction where CPF top-ups to parents and grandparents can only be made to those aged 55 and above. We estimate that the number of additional potential givers who can make top-ups under this new rule is around 18,000.

I urge members to top up their family members' CPF accounts, whether it is using CPF or cash. Top-ups can help CPF members receive a higher monthly income, enjoy the L-Bonus, the 1% extra interest for the first $60,000 balance and possibly higher D-Bonus and V-Bonuses as well.

Assoc. Prof. Straughan also suggested a voluntary scheme that allows regular top-ups from a member's spouse or children via the GIRO system. To clarify, members can already make lump-sum voluntary contributions to their family members' CPF accounts or apply to make regular voluntary contributions through GIRO. We will continue to explore other ways to facilitate top-ups.

Eligible members can also choose to monetise their flats under the Lease Buyback Scheme, in order to participate in CPF LIFE. Mdm Halimah asked for some figures. About 25,000 elderly households could potentially qualify for the Lease Buyback Scheme. Since the launch of the scheme in March this year, HDB has received more than 300 applications. Many who qualify may have adequate financial means and so do not need to tap on the scheme. But, nonetheless, access to such a scheme would give them peace of mind.

Mdm Halimah was also concerned about the impact of inflation on members' retirement adequacy. The NLIC discussed the indexation of LIFE monthly income to inflation but did not recommend it. We have also debated this during the Committee of Supply debate in 2008 and decided against it. As the CPF LIFE is a self-funding scheme, inflation indexation will mean higher premiums or significantly lower incomes in the initial period to provide for higher incomes in future.

Nevertheless, the impact of inflation on members will be mitigated to some extent, given that the long-term return of the fund should reflect inflation trends. In addition, a member's property is another very important part of his retirement savings. About 85% of active CPF members turning 55 own homes and 70% of CPF members pledge their property as part of the minimum sum. With inflation, the value of their homes is likely to go up, both in selling price as well as rental value, thus helping to mitigate the effects of inflation on members.

I agree with Mdm Halimah that we need to step up our efforts on outreach and member education. It is important to help CPF members make informed decisions on the choice of plans and whether to opt in. Beginning September, there will be a media campaign to publicise that CPF LIFE will now be available for opt-in. Individualised mail packages with CPF LIFE brochures will be sent to every eligible Singaporean. There will also be a series of roadshows in collaboration with grassroots organisations, in addition to the monthly talks on CPF for members reaching the age of 55. More information on CPF LIFE can be found on CPF Board's website.

Finally, Mdm Halimah asked about clause 11 (c) which discharges CPF Board of liabilities where it pays monies to a nominee without being aware of a subsequent valid marriage which has the

effect of revoking the nomination. I would like to assure Members that the CPF Board conducts rigorous checks and investigations, where practicable, before making payment. For every case, the Board checks with the Registry of Marriages or Registry of Muslim Marriages, but the Board will not be able to uncover marriages outside Singapore or customary marriages in Singapore, prior to the enactment of the Women's Charter in 1961.

The Board also checks with the deceased family for marriage information where possible. In addition, each nominee is required to declare in its application to the Board that the deceased did not contract a marriage after the nomination date. These checks and safeguards are in place to minimise the risks of wrongful payment. In the unlikely event of a wrong payment, it shall not affect any recourse the rightful claimant may have against the recipient to recover the monies paid by the Board. This is provided for by clause 11 (c) of the Bill. To date, there has not been any complaint from members on the wrongful payment as a result of undiscovered subsequent marriages. However, it is important to clarify the Board's liabilities in this regard. This amendment aims to do so.

Mr Speaker, Sir, CPF helps our people save for their old age. Over the years, our CPF policies have evolved to better address our changing needs and they will continue to evolve. CPF LIFE is our unique response to address the challenges of our ageing population. It marks an important milestone in the evolution of the CPF and I thank this House for giving its support for the Bill.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. – [Mr Gan Kim Yong].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.

Resolved,

"That Parliament do now adjourn to a date to be fixed." – [Mr Mah Bow Tan].

Adjourned accordingly at Eight

Minutes to Four o'clock pm

to a date to be fixed.

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence (a) what are the necessary precautions and safety considerations that Commandos are put through before they are allowed to parachute jump; (b) what kind of insurance coverage is provided to them for accidental death or injuries; and (c) whether he will provide an update on the incident leading to the death of First Warrant Officer Tan Poh Eng and the findings of the Commission of Inquiry.

Dr Fatimah has asked about the precautions and safety considerations that our SAF Commandos are put through prior to participating in parachute jumps. Commandos have to undergo a progressive training programme to participate in parachute jumps. Before commencing training, they have to undergo a medical examination to ensure that they are medically fit for the training.

All Commandos must undergo a Basic Airborne Course which requires them to complete five static-line jumps to attain a basic airborne qualification. Commandos who are selected to attain advanced parachute jumping skills will further need to complete an additional 10 static-line jumps in preparation for the Military FreeFall Course, which requires them to jump from a higher altitude and have a higher degree of technical proficiency. Such a training approach for these commandos will expose them progressively to higher altitudes and parachute jumps that demand greater control of the parachute. They would also have to undergo another medical assessment before commencing the Military FreeFall course.

Commandos who have passed the Military FreeFall Course are required to undergo annual medical reviews to ensure that they remain medically and physically fit to continue participating in Military FreeFall jumps. In addition, they are required to perform at least one Military FreeFall jump within 120 days from their last jump to maintain currency. Should they fail to meet this requirement, they are required to undergo refresher training before they are allowed to participate in Military FreeFall jumps again.

Dr Fatimah also asked about insurance coverage for accidental deaths or injuries. MINDEF has a comprehensive compensation framework to compensate servicemen for deaths or injuries that are due to service. The compensation amounts are based on the same principles and practices used by the civil courts or the Work Injury Compensation Act for deaths or injuries due to work. There is also an appeal process should servicemen or their next-of-kin feel that the compensation is not adequate. The appeal panel, called the Compensation Board, is chaired by a senior Legal Service Officer who is a former District Judge, and comprises senior officers from the Ministry of Manpower and Public Service Division.

Servicemen are also encouraged to provide further financial security for themselves and their families, beyond what is provided for in the comprehensive compensation

framework through insurance. MINDEF has an opt-out Group Term Life Insurance scheme for all its servicemen to cover death or injuries, both during the course of duty and when the servicemen are off duty. This is available at the very affordable rate of $12.80 per month per $100,000 insured, up to a maximum of $400,000.

MINDEF has completed its investigations into the circumstances leading to the death of First Warrant Officer Tan Poh Eng. The cause of death, from the South African pathologist's report, was multiple injuries consistent with fall from parachute. The investigations have established that First Warrant Officer Tan underwent a medical review on 2 Feb 2009 in accordance with the medical review protocol for Military Freefall. First Warrant Officer Tan was certified fit to participate in Military FreeFall. The investigations also established that the parachute used by First Warrant Officer Tan was serviceable, properly packed and had deployed fully. The investigations also ascertained that the safety, training and medical processes were adhered to during the incident. The investigations did not find any evidence to suggest foul play or negligence on the part of any persons involved in the training.

The post-mortem findings showed that First Warrant Officer Tan had some extent of coronary artery disease. However, there was no evidence that he suffered from an acute myocardial infarction, otherwise known as a heart attack, or other heart disease. The autopsy findings could not conclusively identify any medical condition that might have impaired his ability to steer to a safe landing.

MINDEF treats every death of its servicemen with utmost seriousness. We spare no effort in investigating the circumstances leading to such unfortunate incidents. Where required, measures will be put in place to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. I would like to assure Dr Fatimah and Members of this House that the SAF will continue to be vigilant in ensuring training safety.

First Warrant Officer Tan was a well respected and highly experienced serviceman. The members of the Commando Formation, and the SAF feel his loss, and along with them, I extend my deepest condolences to First Warrant Officer Tan Poh Eng's family.

asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports what assistance has been provided by the Ministry for Singapore's sportsmen and sportswomen to prepare them for international and regional games such as the Youth Olympic Games, Asian Games and ASEAN Games.

The National Sports Associations (NSAs) are responsible for the training and preparations of all their athletes, including our national athletes for international competitions and major games. To support the NSAs in the training of our athletes, the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) funds the NSA High Performance programmes. For the current financial year (FY09), SSC will be investing about $20 million in these NSA programmes and training of athletes. SSC also provides other forms of support including

the provision of facilities and sports medicine and sports science services, at a cost of about $7.3 million in FY09. The support given to the NSAs cater to over 800 athletes.

The above framework will be supplemented by the recently launched Olympic Pathway Programme (OPP). This builds on the previous Project 0812 programme which was a multi-agency effort to prepare athletes for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The OPP will provide support for a select group of top athletes to help them achieve success at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

MCYS and MOE have also set up the Singapore Youth Sports Development Committee in September 2008 to focus on broadening the participation base and strengthening the youth development pipeline. This supplements the Singapore Sports School (SSP), funded by MCYS, which prepares our younger athletes for regional and international games.

The Singapore Youth Sports Development Committee also channels resources to NSAs so that they can provide more opportunities for young athletes to participate in training or in selection trials for the YOG.

asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports how the hosting of the Asian Youth Games 2009 has helped Singapore prepare for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games.

The inaugural Asian Youth Games (AYG) was a success. The Organising Committee comprising staff from the Ministry of Education and Singapore Sports Council did an excellent job despite the very short preparation time and tight budget in organising a complex multi-sports event.

The AYG was conceived as a test event for the coming Youth Olympic Games in 2010. Therefore, members of the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC) were involved throughout the preparatory and operational phases of the AYG. Both Games Organising Committees are undertaking a comprehensive review of all aspects of the AYG to draw relevant lessons for the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) next year. I shall now touch on some of the preliminary lessons learnt and also give an update on the preparations for the YOG.

First, we gained invaluable experience in conducting an international multi-sport event in a community setting. It is worth bearing in mind that both the AYG and YOG will be conducted without the National Stadium being available. Therefore, all the venues are really community sports venues used by local residents. We had to quickly bring the facilities up to international competition standard to ensure that athletes have a conducive environment to perform to their best. It was also a complex exercise in coordination because of the numerous different venues and transport arrangements to ensure that athletes and officials could move safely and efficiently. On the accommodation front, I am pleased to note that the Games Village has impressed the National Olympic Committee, athletes, officials and VIPs for the total offerings and world-class service excellence.

Second, we learnt the importance of having sufficient lead time and publicity to increase spectatorship. The AYG did not have the luxury of time or budget for sustained publicity for the Games. We now recognise that perhaps due to lack of familiarity of sports and the athletes, some events were less popular for spectators. The YOG team, together with the national sports associations and other education, community and corporate partners, will be increasing public outreach. I hope this will drum up greater support for all athletes before and during the games. There was one area where we broke new ground. The innovative use of live new media broadcasting over the Internet had turned out to be a positive experience in engaging the public, both locally and overseas for the AYG, and it will be considered for the YOG.

The third area is in the conduct of the culture and education programme (CEP). This was first introduced at the AYG and will be a key feature of the YOG where sports, culture and education will be integrated as part of the formal programme for all the athletes. The CEP aimed to help the participating athletes learn about different cultures, and establish new understanding and friendships with fellow athletes and our volunteers off the field. The athletes had given positive feedback. We have gained valuable knowledge on areas such as athletes’ interests, event schedules and role of interpreters. With these insights, SYOGOC would be able to refine service levels and ensure delivery of an engaging and lasting off-the-field experience for the YOG participants next year.

Fourth, we also learnt much about how to manage a potential outbreak of influenza and other infectious diseases while conducting an international event. We were able to quickly detect the few cases of influenza among the athletes and officials and took prompt actions to prevent an outbreak. The protocol that was developed and field-tested during the AYG will certainly help to ensure a safe environment for the YOG.

There are many other lessons, such as the enrolment, training and engagement of volunteers, working as a team among the various stakeholders, enhancing our relationships with the Olympic Council of Asia and the international sports federations. SYOGOC will carefully study all the lessons learnt and apply them to ensure that the YOG, though much larger and more complex, will deliver an even more exciting, enriching and memorable experience for all athletes, officials, visitors, volunteers and other stakeholders.

asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources (a) what are the rates for collection of refuse in private estates in the different zones in Singapore; and (b) what is the percentage increase in the rates charged for each zone now as compared with the last revision in rates.

Domestic waste from HDB estates and private landed estates is collected by Public Waste Collectors (PWCs) which have been appointed by NEA through public tender. Private high-rise residential estates, such as condominiums and apartments, can either use the PWCs appointed by NEA or make their own arrangements with licensed General Waste Collectors (GWCs).

Singapore is divided into nine geographical sectors for the purpose of public waste collection and there are four PWCs serving these sectors. The current PWC contracts were awarded between 2004 and 2006 for a period of seven to eight years. The fees levied by the PWCs are based on the rates in the tender and cannot be adjusted without the approval of NEA. There has been no fee revision to date. In the next round of contracts from 2011, NEA will continue to be mindful of the need for PWCs to provide reliable and efficient refuse collection services at reasonable rates. Fees can only be adjusted based on the terms of the contract and with the approval of NEA.

The current refuse collection fees for private condominiums and apartments serviced by PWCs range from about $4 to $6.90 per month while the fees for landed premises range from $16 to $22.50 per month. The fees levied by the PWCs differ from sector to sector as the fees are determined by tender and the sectors differ from one another in terms of the number of dwelling units, the traveling distance for refuse collection and disposal and timing of the tenders. The average fee for private condominiums and apartments serviced by PWCs is about $5.20 per month while the average fee for landed premises is $18.30 per month.

Compared to the previous round of contracts awarded between 1999 and 2001, the current average refuse collection fee for private condominiums and apartments serviced by PWCs decreased by 32% on average, while the fee for landed premises decreased by 15%.

Private high-rise residential estates which choose to engage the services of GWCs incur refuse collection fees based on the terms and conditions of their individual agreements with the GWCs. These fees are not regulated by NEA. However, the GWC market has 340 licensed service providers. Thus, the management corporations of private estates can consider their options and choose one that best suits their respective developments.

asked the Minister for Transport in view of the proposed $1 million drive to promote taxi ridership (a) why is the Ministry funding this project; (b) how is the cost shared among the various parties involved, from shopping centres to transport operators; (c) if a study was done to find out the reasons for the drop in taxi ridership; and (d) whether the taxi operators will consider reducing fares to improve ridership.

The Land Transport Authority, in close consultation with the Taxi Operators Association and taxi companies, decided to set up a fund as a temporary measure, not only to help the taxi industry cope with the current economic downturn, but also with the view to gear the industry up for upcoming developments when the economy recovers and when major projects like the Integrated Resorts open.

The fund serves three objectives. First, it aims to improve the service levels of taxi drivers, so as to enhance the overall delivery of service to commuters, by co-funding initiatives such as programmes on good service behaviour, proposed by the companies.

This is in line with the purpose of the Taxi Operator Licence framework, which seeks to ensure taxi companies deliver a high level of service by complying with Quality of Service standards. Second, it encourages the industry to do more to stimulate demand, by co-funding initiatives from the taxi companies for up to one-third of the cost of the promotional activities, but this will expressly exclude any direct subsidy of taxi fares. Third, it serves to improve convenience and accessibility for taxi commuters during major events like the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix and the Singapore River Hongbao, by supporting additional infrastructure facilities such as temporary taxi stands.

Such efforts will, on the whole, help the taxi industry better match the current taxi supply with demand, while continuing to improve service levels for the benefit of commuters. LTA’s objective is not just to help the industry cope with the downturn, but to also position the industry for the economic recovery and to better meet the additional demand expected when major projects like the Integrated Resorts open later this year. Disbursements from the fund are by application only, and only proposals that meet the stipulated requirements will be approved. While a $1 million budget has been set aside, actual utilization will depend on the merits of the proposals LTA receives.

As for Dr Lim’s question on fare adjustment, this is up to individual companies to decide as the setting of taxi fares has been de-regulated. It is ultimately a commercial decision that individual taxi companies have to make taking into consideration various factors, including the impact on their taxi drivers amongst others.

asked the Minister for Transport with the proposed conversion of Seletar Airport into an aerospace hub (a) whether the Ministry has taken into consideration the impact of noise pollution on nearby housing estates; (b) what steps are being taken to keep the flight paths for aircraft away from high-rise flats; and (c) what are the safety considerations in drawing up the flight paths.

The potential impact of aircraft noise on residential areas has been taken into consideration in the planning of the Seletar Aerospace Park. Consultancy studies carried out by CAAS and JTC showed that while there is expected to be some increase in aircraft noise experienced by nearby residents, this will still be well within development planning norms, established internationally, for residential areas near an airport.

Notwithstanding this, CAAS has put in place several noise abatement measures to reduce noise levels in the vicinity of Seletar Airport. CAAS disallows older and noisier jet aircraft that do not meet international standards on aircraft noise from operating in Singapore. Jet aircrafts which operate to Seletar are newer-generation ones which are quieter.

To further curb aircraft generated noise, CAAS introduced altitude restrictions requiring aircraft to be no lower than 1,500 ft (about 450 metres) when they have to overfly the residential areas to the west and south of Seletar Airport.

Depending on the prevailing wind direction at Seletar Airport, aircraft will have to land from the north or the south. To avoid aircraft overflying the residential areas and thereby reduce the noise disturbance, CAAS will as far as possible, minimise aircraft landings from the south.

In addition, Seletar Airport prohibits training flights and cargo flights between the hours of 10:00 pm to 7:00 am daily.

Regarding the safety of aircraft flight paths and whether aircraft are away from high-rise flats, let me assure the House that there are well established international safety standards and templates on air space around an airport that have to be met. A key flight safety measure is the strict height limits imposed on tall structures in the vicinity of the airport, including the areas under the landing and take-off flight paths of Seletar Airport. This ensures that there is no unauthorised construction of tall buildings that could pose a danger to any aircraft in flight. CAAS further requires tall buildings to be lit with fail-safe obstacle lights to enhance their visibility to aircraft pilots at night.

Aircraft noise and flight safety are not issues new to the Seletar Airport. The various measures I have described are already in place. Going forward, these measures will still be relevant with the development of the Seletar Aerospace Park. The CAAS will regularly review the measures for improvement where appropriate, taking into account the advent of new technology that could enhance flight safety, and further minimise noise disturbance to residents.

asked the Minister for Trade and Industry whether his Ministry could give an assessment of the possible impact on Singapore arising from the US proposals to change its tax regime which would affect US companies operating here.

The proposed changes to the US tax regime, if implemented, is likely to result in an increased tax burden for US companies with overseas operations. But these changes will affect US companies’ operations not only in Singapore, but also in other countries.

The exact nature of the tax changes is still being worked out in the US, and MTI, MOF and EDB are monitoring the developments closely. The proposals have led to a fair amount of debate within the US, and US companies have been active in giving feedback to the administration regarding the proposed tax changes. The eventual impact on US companies operating in Singapore will depend on whether the proposals pass through, and if so, in what form. The US companies themselves are also watching closely and studying the potential impact of the proposed changes on their operations.

We are also in close touch with US companies in Singapore and relevant industry groups to hear their feedback. This is important as the impact of the proposed changes will likely vary across different industries, and will also depend on the specific situation of each company, including its corporate structure and the kinds of substantive activities it conducts in Singapore.

We are concerned, but not unduly so. A competitive corporate tax regime is an important strength for Singapore but is not the only one. Businessmen, tax professionals, and industry analysts have repeatedly stressed that multinationals choose Singapore for a variety of reasons beyond tax considerations – including market access, cost effectiveness, collaboration opportunities, infrastructure, regional connectivity, access to talent, and political and economic stability. As a business location, Singapore offers a superior quality of living, world-class infrastructure, conducive business environment, and a flexible, high-skilled and open labour market. Global companies locate here because Singapore is their entry point into the growing Asian market. Singapore has been able to attract companies from different industries and geographies to establish substantive activities here in manufacturing, research and development, supply chain management and control tower functions. EDB continues to see a healthy pipeline of new projects and expansion of existing operations in Singapore from companies from all over the world, including the US.

The Government will continue to monitor tax developments in the US. We will also continue to improve Singapore’s attractiveness as a business hub and a gateway to the region for both US and non-US companies.

asked the Minister for Finance whether the measures funded by drawing on the national reserves, such as the Special Risk-sharing Initiative, have been effective in shoring up our economy.

The two schemes that have been funded from past reserves are the Jobs Credit scheme and the Special Risk-sharing Initiative (SRI). To date, the Government has provided more than $1.8 billion of Jobs Credits to employers in March and June this year, and will provide another two tranches of Jobs Credits in September and December.

Feedback to date from employers and the unions on the impact of the Jobs Credit scheme suggests that the scheme has helped reduce job losses among Singaporeans. While it is not possible to determine the precise impact of the scheme, the feedback indicates that the combination of the Jobs Credit Scheme and the SPUR programme has encouraged employers to keep jobs, and to redeploy them when necessary and send them for training.

The Jobs Credit scheme is also part of a significantly expansionary fiscal policy this year, which would have macroeconomic effects. In other words, besides its direct impact on jobs, the funds injected through Jobs Credits are expected to have a multiplier effect on the economy. Again, it is not possible to estimate this effect with precision.

As for the SRI, it has helped to stimulate bank lending to SMEs and ensured that a broader segment of companies have access to credit to sustain their operations. Since its

introduction, we have seen a surge in loans provided to enterprises under the various SME financing schemes.

Within the first five months (from February to June 2009), Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) have registered over 6,600 loans worth about $3.3 billion. This is about eight times the value of loans approved in the same period last year. SMEs have especially benefited from the SRI. More than 90% of the loans approved were granted to SMEs, and these loans accounted for about 70% of the total loan quantum approved. General sentiments from SMEs indicate that the enhancements have been timely, with the increased Government risk-sharing playing a significant role in helping SMEs secure loans in this economic climate. The deterioration of the broader commercial lending market has also moderated alongside the stabilisation in global market conditions, with a 0.1 percent decline in business lending in May 2009 over April, compared to a 2.2 percent contraction in November.

The Government will continue to review the effectiveness of these schemes.

asked the Prime Minister how and what are the steps to be undertaken to re-energise and inject greater collaboration amongst civil servants in various Government departments under the Public Service for the 21st Century (PS21) initiative.

Dr Fatimah asked how the Public Service will inject greater collaboration amongst public officers in various Government departments.

Fostering greater collaboration amongst public officers in different agencies is an important priority of the Public Service. There are many issues that the Public Service deals with that involve multiple agencies.

We have taken two approaches to foster greater collaboration. The first is by building a Whole-of-Government mindset among public officers. This must start with the leadership of the Public Service, and extend to all levels of officers. For example, each year, we gather around 900 public sector leaders and senior public officers from different Ministries and statutory boards at the annual Public Service Staff Conference to be briefed on critical issues facing our country so that they can better appreciate the need to work together. The Civil Service College also conducts leadership development programmes for some 1,200 officers each year. During these seminars and programmes, they discuss policy and operational issues which cut across different agencies and learn skills on how to better collaborate with each other.

We have also increased efforts to build a common identity and shared purpose amongst public officers. This is why we started the Public Service Week last year, to remind officers that although they come from different organisations, they all have a responsibility to serve Singaporeans and work toward the public good.

The second approach is by increasing the opportunities for public officers to put their Whole-of-Government mindset into practice through working on actual issues. Let me share some examples. Officers from the Singapore Land Authority and JTC came together

to work on shore protection for reclaimed land*, creating a new method that takes less time and costs less. Officers from various maritime agencies and organisations such as the Singapore Armed Forces, Police Coast Guard, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and Singapore Customs have formed a Maritime Security Task Force to ensure tighter security for our maritime borders. And the Committee headed by the Ministry of Home Affairs to deal with the current H1N1 situation is supported strongly by officers from many public agencies, including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, the Ministry of National Development, and the Public Service Division.

But there is always room for improvement. Public officers are encouraged to be open and receptive to new ideas and suggestions. Today, there is a healthy flow and exchange of ideas and suggestions, within each agency and also across them. The Public Service also actively solicits ideas from the public. We may not accept every idea, but we study each idea carefully, weighing the merits against broader community, public, and national interests.

Every year, during Public Service Week, we recognise public officers who have gone the extra mile to serve the public or who made good suggestions for improving service levels. This year, for the first time, we recognised three members of the public for making very useful and constructive suggestions that improved the services provided by the Ministry of Manpower, the Accountant-General’s Department and the CPF Board.

Therefore, not only are we fostering greater collaboration across Government agencies, we also want to encourage a healthy and constructive engagement and partnership between the Public Service and the public we serve.

*For a very long time, rock bunds were used to prevent reclaimed land from being washed away. But when JTC adopted a sensible practice of reclaiming land just in time to meet demand, companies moving in often removed the rock bunds soon after they had been built. The companies replaced them with other types of shore protection customised to suit their special requirements, such as to allow ships to dock. Clearly, it was a waste to build the rock bunds only to have them removed soon after. The joint team from JTC and SLA therefore came up with a risk management approach. This meant analysing the wave impact on different stretches of the reclaimed land and putting in minimum shore protection that is just sufficient to prevent soil erosion before the reclaimed land is sold. Every year, for every kilometre of land reclaimed under this new approach, the Government and the companies save a total of $16 million and reduce construction time by 7.7 months.

asked the Minister for Manpower if he will give an update on the enforcement actions taken against work-permit holders in the construction and marine industries for being deployed as drivers to transport workers.

asked the Minister for Manpower (a) if he will give an update on the problem of phantom workers; (b) how many companies have been investigated for having phantom local workers and how many foreign workers are brought in as a result of it; (c) how many foreign workers have been repatriated and how many have alternative jobs; and (d) whether the Ministry has identified the loopholes in the system to prevent further unscrupulous practices by employers.

MOM has stepped up enforcement efforts on the use of phantom workers through island-wide on-site checks and intelligence operations. In addition, MOM has put in place measures to flag out unusual company profiles that may indicate the existence of phantom workers. These measures have proved successful in surfacing suspicious employers and practices that circumvent our controls.

Since January 2009, MOM has prosecuted 26 employers for falsely declaring the number of local workers employed so as to inflate their foreign worker entitlement. In

addition to prosecution action, we also debar offending employers from hiring foreign workers for a period of time.

Even as we take action against these unscrupulous employers, MOM also helps the foreign workers who are affected. In instances where the foreign workers have outstanding employment issues, MOM will resolve these before facilitating their repatriation. In appropriate cases, MOM also facilitates the change of employment for the affected workers. Since January 2009, MOM has repatriated about 980 workers and facilitated more than 300 to find alternative employers here.

MOM will continue to crack down on errant employers who hire 'phantom' workers to inflate their foreign worker entitlement. MOM urges employers who hire 'phantom' workers to immediately stop doing so and employ genuine local workers or cancel the work permits of their existing foreign workers to ensure compliance with foreign worker quotas.

Enforcement is being stepped up on other fronts too, for example, the illegal deployment of foreign workers. From January to June 2009, 157 foreign workers were found to have been illegally deployed by their employers. This includes 21 construction workers and five marine workers who were deployed as drivers in contravention of work permit conditions. MOM will continue its enforcement efforts against errant employers.

asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what are the Ministry's considerations when screening a foreign domestic worker for employment; (b) whether a foreign domestic worker will be barred from future employment if she has a record of criminal conviction in Singapore or elsewhere; and (c) how does the Ministry screen the state of mental health of a foreign domestic worker before allowing her to work in Singapore.

Foreign domestic workers (FDW) coming to Singapore are tested for their basic ability to adapt to their working and living environment in Singapore, examined for their medical fitness and screened for any adverse records including crimes and misdemeanors.

Firstly, FDWs are required to pass an entry test before they are allowed to start work, to ensure that they can understand basic safety instructions and have basic numeracy and literacy skills to perform household tasks, and adapt to life in Singapore. This is not a test to evaluate the FDW’s mental health. However, if the FDW is able to better adapt to living and working in Singapore, the mental stress on her will be reduced.

Secondly, FDWs must also be certified medically fit by a registered medical practitioner in Singapore. The medical examination includes tests for infectious diseases and general fitness. The examining doctor will also assess the mental state of the foreign domestic worker.

Finally, FDWs who have a prior record of criminal conviction in Singapore or found to have criminal records elsewhere would be barred from employment in Singapore.

asked the Minister for National Development whether the Ministry will consider (a) allowing tenants of HDB rental flats more time to pay their rental when they fall into arrears due to economic hardship; (b) allowing existing tenants to retain their rental flats when one of the co-tenants or occupiers has passed away; and (c) the number of dependants of the tenant of a HDB rental flat before adjusting the rental for tenants whose income has exceeded $800.

HDB’s public rental flats are highly subsidised. Eighty-three percent of rental households pay $30 per month for a 1-room flat, and $60 for a 2-room flat. These rents have remained unchanged since 1979.

Despite the very low rents, some households in severe financial difficulty fall into rent arrears. HDB will exercise patience and give them more time. If necessary, HDB will also refer them to the Community Development Councils for help under the ComCare schemes. Households with family or other social issues may also be referred to Family Service Centres and other welfare organisations for help.

The rental rates are calibrated to provide subsidy where it is most needed. Rental households earning below $800 per month pay $30 per month for a 1-room flat. Those with monthly income between $800 and $1,500 pay 30% of market rent or $110 per month for a 1-room flat. Tenants with monthly incomes exceeding $1,500 pay 50% of market rent or $180 per month for a 1-room flat*. They are strongly encouraged to consider home ownership.

Nonetheless, we recognise that some rental households earning more than $800 per month cannot afford the higher rents. They may have a large household size, or they have family members suffering from chronic illnesses. HDB will take into account the circumstances of such cases and be flexible in considering such cases. If they have genuine financial difficulty, HDB will not impose higher rents on them.

When a tenant or occupier of a rental flat passes away, the remaining family member is allowed to stay on. However, flats let out under the Joint Singles Scheme (JSS) are meant for two single persons to flat share. Hence, HDB would require the remaining tenant to include another eligible occupier. This is to ensure that our limited supply of rental flats is optimised to help the truly needy.

*The corresponding rates for 2R flat are: $150 (30% MR) and $240 (50% MR).

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs given the rising number of foreign cyclists involved in accidents, what measures are being put in place to educate foreign workers on traffic rules and safe cycling.

The number of foreign cyclists who were injured or killed on our roads increased from 149 in 2005 to 282 last year. So far this year, the situation has shown some improvement. The number of foreign cyclists involved in such accidents declined in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year: 58 cases compared to 75. During this period, there have been no fatalities this year, compared to three last year.

Traffic Police has been working assiduously with its community partners to imbue key road safety messages in our foreign workers here, particularly those on work passes. It has produced and handed out posters on pedestrian and cyclist safety at these dormitories and to corporate partners and companies that employ a large number of foreign workers. As part of the ongoing Road Safety Outreach Campaign, Police have partnered the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to get the road safety message out early to newly-arrived foreign workers. A safe-cycling video in English, Bengali, Thai and Mandarin, was screened at the premises of MOM, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority and the bigger dormitories. Early this year, Traffic Police also partnered the Hindu Endowment Board to disseminate road safety messages and safety tips to more than 35,000 foreign workers through a special two-day event held at Little India.

These outreach efforts are ongoing. Hence, Traffic Police conducts customised talks at dormitories, schools and community-level events to educate foreign cyclists on our local traffic rules and regulations. These talks cover a pre-riding checklist, safe cycling tips and case studies of accidents involving cyclists. Road safety exhibitions are also held at HDB neighbourhoods and workplaces such as shipyards.

Many road accidents can be prevented if motorists obey traffic rules and remain vigilant, keeping a lookout especially for vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians. On the other hand, cyclists themselves must act responsibly, exercising common sense; for example, they should not ride against the flow of traffic, or ride across a pedestrian crossing. When riding at night, to enhance their visibility, they should wear bright or light-coloured clothing and use bicycle lights, ensuring that there are reflectors on their bicycles.

Traffic Police will continue to work with its stakeholders to reach out to all groups of road users.

asked the Minister for Manpower why the Government does not release employment data with Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents as distinct categories, rather than grouping the two categories together as "Residents".

The Ministry of Manpower regularly publishes employment figures based on resident population which captures Singapore citizens (SCs) and permanent residents (PRs) as a single group. Many other countries do not publish employment statistics disaggregated by residential status in their regular labour market update.

Due to the resources required, the Ministry does not routinely track employment data disaggregated by Singapore citizens and permanent residents. Nevertheless, MOM publishes occasional papers from time to time on employment statistics with such a breakdown. In February last year, MOM released an occasional study which disaggregated employment data by Singapore citizens, permanent residents and foreigners.

asked the Minister for Manpower if he will consider extending the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) scheme to taxi operators and tour guides who are self-employed.

Most Government-funded Continuing Education and Training (CET) programmes were previously only employer-based. However, over the past few years, MOM and WDA have opened up more avenues for individuals including self-employed to directly access Government-subsidised CET programmes, so workers need not be sponsored by an employer in order to go for training.

Today, an individual can walk into any of the 45 CET Centres to enrol in a wide range of Workforce Skills Qualification (WSQ) training courses, all of which receive up to 90% course fee subsidy. Likewise, many SPUR programmes at the CET Centres, Polytechnics and ITEs are open to individuals, including workers unable to get company sponsorship for their training, as well as the unemployed and self-employed. As of end Jun 09, there were about 49,000 individuals who had signed up for SPUR training on their own, or close to one-third of the total committed training numbers under SPUR, have done so. I encourage more Singaporeans to follow the example of these individuals.

There are already several generic SPUR courses relevant to taxi drivers and tour guides. For example, they can hone their service skills through WSQ Service Excellence training or improve their English language skills through Employment Skills Systems (ESS) training at CET Centres.

Tour guides can sign up for the WSQ Tourist Guide Course, which is a pre-requisite for their tourist guide licence. They can also attend other professional development courses, including WSQ Tourism courses at the Certificate, Advanced Certificate and Diploma levels available at the Tourism Management Institute of Singapore (TMIS). All these courses are under SPUR and eligible for 90% subsidy of the course fees. To date, close to 240 tour guides have attended these courses.

WDA had been working with the Singapore Taxi Academy (STA) and the taxi companies over the past two years to train new taxi drivers who are entering the sector, through the Taxi Vocational Licence course. About 2,900 taxi drivers were trained under this programme funded by WDA. WDA is also working closely with the STA to develop customised programmes to improve the language and service skills of taxi drivers. These programmes will also receive 90% course fee subsidy under SPUR.

asked the Minister for Education (a) what steps have been taken to stop Brookes Business School from continuing with peddling fake degrees after the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology reported to the Ministry in 2007 about them; and (b) what was done to alert the public so as to contain the damage.

Let me first set the context before addressing the Member’s specific questions. The private education landscape in Singapore has evolved rapidly in recent years. The number of private schools registered with the Ministry of Education has grown exponentially. It doubled in the ten years between 1987 and 1997, from 150 to 305. It then quadrupled in the next 10 years between 1997 and 2007, from 305 to 1,200 private schools. Over the years, Government had adopted a light touch approach in regulating this industry, which included among other measures, basic registration and CaseTrust accreditation for education providers.

However, with the rapid growth in the number of private schools and the wide range in standards, this "light touch" approach is no longer adequate. MOE will be tabling the Private Education Bill for Parliament’s approval later this year to strengthen our regulatory powers to deal with errant private education institutions, as well as to work with industry to raise standards. The Council of Private Education (CPE), which will be established under the Act, will bring together individuals with expertise in education, quality assurance and business, as well as representatives from Government agencies. The CPE will better regulate the private education industry, guide its development and ensure Singapore’s status as an education hub of quality and reliability.

One key thrust of the CPE’s efforts will be to raise consumer awareness through more extensive public education. This includes the establishment of a Student Information Centre to provide and draw consumers’ attention to relevant information such as the list of external degree programmes registered with MOE. Degrees offered by Brookes Business School were not on this list. This list has been publicly available since 2002 and put out on MOE’s website even prior to the RMIT’s complaint against Brookes Business School in 2007. Members of the public are advised to check degrees offered by private education providers with this list. If the Private Education Bill is passed, the CPE will require education providers to specifically inform prospective students if degrees offered by them are on the list.

On the Member’s specific questions, RMIT had written to MOE in April 2007 to report that the Brookes Business School was falsely associating itself with RMIT on its website and offering RMIT’s external degree programmes. In the same letter, RMIT had also informed MOE that it had obtained an undertaking from Brookes Business School to remove all references to RMIT under its programmes and collaterals, to notify affected students, and to refrain from any such activities in the future. RMIT had indicated that it would initiate legal proceedings against Brookes Business School if the undertaking was not honoured.

Subsequently in June 2007, MOE issued a warning to Brookes Business School for carrying misleading information on its website and other publicity materials. RMIT was kept informed and as MOE did not receive further indication from RMIT, considered the

matter to be resolved through private action between the parties concerned. We also understand that no legal proceedings have been initiated by RMIT against Brookes Business School over the past two years.

Let me assure the Member that MOE will take appropriate actions against errant private education providers if there is a legal basis to do so under the current Education Act. In June 2009, MOE and Police received reports by the students against Brookes Business School. The staff of the school is assisting Police in their investigations. In parallel, MOE has also conducted its investigations into Brookes Business School for probable contraventions under the Education Act. MOE has since cancelled the registration of Brookes Business School on the basis that the supervisor is not a 'fit and proper' person to continue to operate the school. Another school operated by the same supervisor has also been closed for the same reason. MOE is currently helping to facilitate the transfer of students to other private education institutions, where possible.

MOE would like to advise students to exercise due diligence when selecting courses and private education institutions. Students should check the MOE website to ensure that the external degree programmes had been registered prior to signing up. We also encourage students to check with the foreign universities to ensure that as students studying at offshore centres, they would be accorded equivalent standing as students studying at the universities’ home campuses.

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs under the category "Race" in the Singapore NRIC, (a) how many other different groups are there on our Registry of Citizens, besides Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian; (b) whether he will provide a list of all the groups in the order of their numerical strength in the population and their percentages; and (c) what are the considerations that guide the Government’s decision to assign a citizen to a particular racial group.

Besides Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian, there are currently 91 other races that Singapore Citizens are classified under.

Chinese, Malays, and Indians form the three largest groups. They constitute 78%, 14%, and 7% respectively of our population. Among the other races which make up the remaining 1%, Eurasians form the largest group, followed by Arabs. Together, they account for more than 60% of this 1%. The remaining 0.4% of Singaporeans are distributed across 80 over other races.

The Government does not assign a particular race to a person. The general rule is that a person’s race follows that of his or her father. However, a person’s race can be registered differently if he or she is of mixed parentage. For example, a child of Chinese and European descent can be registered as Chinese, European or Eurasian. In this regard, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority exercises flexibility during the NRIC registration process, which takes place for most children at the age of 15. A declaration by the parents will be accepted so long as it falls within normally accepted notions of ethnicity by lineage.

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence in respect of his statement at the 2009 Shangri-La Dialogue on military transparency, to what extent is the Ministry prepared to articulate our security concerns and strategic intent to our neighbours vis-à-vis our ASEAN partners in view of the fact that it is a very intricate and sensitive affair.

Military transparency is not an end in itself, but serves a larger objective of building trust and cooperation for mutual benefit in the region. Within ASEAN, and in the larger Asia Pacific region, there are three levels of military transparency that the region can work together on to further enhance regional peace and stability.

At the first level, military transparency means disclosing information about one’s armaments and military programmes. At the second level, states must go beyond "bean-counting" to articulate their security concerns and strategic intent in a way that can reassure others. This can be done through the publication of White Papers, government statements or interviews, and dialogues between states. At the third level, military

transparency involves cooperative action that contributes more directly to regional security. This encompasses practical cooperation, joint exercises and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

ASEAN has been working to advance these three levels of military transparency within the region. At the first level of disclosing one’s armaments and military programmes, efforts include the ASEAN Regional Forum’s (ARF) support for the UN Register on Conventional Arms since 1994, and the publication of the ARF Annual Security Outlook reports. At the second level, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea are good examples of how ASEAN has sought to express our peaceful and cooperative intent. Security dialogues like the ARF and the Shangri-La Dialogue also contribute to this second level of military transparency. Finally, at the third level, ASEAN countries have achieved a healthy level of security cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral levels. Operational cooperative mechanisms, such as the Malacca Strait Patrols (MSP), have also had a positive impact on regional security and enhanced trust between the participating states.

Singapore regularly and publicly articulates our defence policy positions on a variety of issues at various forums. In addition, we share our strategic perspective with other countries in ASEAN through our contribution to the ARF Annual Security Outlook and voluntary briefings at the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meetings (ADMM).

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence in light of Australia's extension of the use of Shoalwater Bay for our military training, how has that impacted on Singapore’s military/ defence relations/ arrangements with our neighbouring countries.

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence whether Singapore is actively looking for more military training locations regionally and internationally to strengthen our military’s exposure to varied training terrain and conditions (land, sea and air) and, if so, where are the exact locations and countries.

This answer is in response to Question Nos 3 and 4.

Realistic military training has been an integral part of our efforts to build up and maintain a strong and credible Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). Given our limited local training areas and airspace, the SAF needs to train overseas and has been doing so since the 1970s.

Singapore is grateful to the many countries around the world, including Australia, Brunei, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Thailand and the US, that have allowed the SAF to train in their territories. These overseas training opportunities for the SAF have contributed to the building of friendly and mutually beneficial relations between the SAF and the armed forces of these countries. It also allows the SAF to benchmark itself against other professional armed forces.

In Australia, the Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA) is a key training area for the SAF. Singapore is deeply appreciative of Australia’s continued support for the SAF’s training and in particular, the extension of the use of SWBTA by the SAF. The renewal of the SWBTA Memorandum of Agreement with Australia has not had any impact on our defence relations with our neighbours. They are well aware of Singapore’s longstanding need for overseas training areas.

As local training space will remain a premium in Singapore, MINDEF and the SAF will continue to explore new overseas training opportunities in accordance with the SAF’s operational needs.

asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence how the recently-signed Arrangement between Singapore and New Zealand Concerning Defence Cooperation can improve the capability of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and boost ties between the New Zealand Armed Forces and SAF.

The Arrangement between Singapore and New Zealand Concerning Defence Cooperation reaffirms the close and longstanding bilateral defence relationship, which is based on shared strategic perspectives and common security interests. The two armed forces have been cooperating closely in several areas, including the current multinational reconstruction efforts in Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan, and also interact regularly as members of the Five Power Defence Arrangements. New Zealand also provides training access to the Singapore Armed Forces, which we are grateful for. The Arrangement also serves as a framework to expand and deepen the existing defence links between Singapore and New Zealand, in areas such as policy dialogues, military cooperation, operations and training. These interactions and cooperation help to enhance the SAF’s capabilities and professionalism, as well as to strengthen the interoperability and people-to-people links between both armed forces.

asked the Minister for Education whether the amount of funding given by the Ministry to all primary schools is identical and, if not, how does the Ministry determine the level of funding given to each primary school.

The Ministry of Education fully funds the operating costs of every primary school. MOE pays directly for manpower costs, and provides each school with funding to meet their operating needs including utilities, enrichment programmes and equipment, based on a per-capita formula that is identical across all primary schools.

Some schools may receive additional funding to run specific programmes. For example, 61 primary schools under the Programme for School Based Excellence receive up to $150,000 over three years to develop their chosen niches. These comprise a good mix of Government-aided and Government schools. All primary schools can apply for this

programme and will receive funding if they meet the qualifying criteria. Schools with a larger number of children on the Financial Assistance Scheme also receive higher levels of funding under the Opportunity Fund, which provides children from low income households with access to enrichment programmes.

asked the Minister for Education what steps are taken by the Ministry to ascertain that pupils are accepted by primary schools in accordance with the current registration scheme for Primary One admissions.

The annual Primary One Registration Exercise is conducted in accordance with a clearly defined set of criteria which is available on the MOE website. Primary schools are required to verify and retain all necessary documents to ascertain a child’s eligibility for a particular phase. These documents may be checked by MOE which will take steps to rectify practices that are not in accordance with the Primary One Registration Framework. The registration forms also carry a reminder to parents and guardians that it is an offence to furnish false information to a public officer. Those found to have provided false information will be referred to the Police for investigation. A child who is successfully registered in a school based on false information will be transferred to another school with available vacancies after all eligible children have been registered.

These measures help ensure that primary school places are allocated in a transparent, fair and equitable manner.

asked the Minister for Transport (a) how many cases of MRT train breakdown and disruption are there in the last three years; (b) what are the common causes; and (c) with 'driverless' trains in operation, whether there are specific risk management steps to be undertaken.

From 2007 to 12 July 2009, there were 92 incidents of MRT service disruption which lasted more than 10 minutes. Of these 92, 30 lasted more than 30 minutes. Twelve of these 30 were caused by people entering the train track area and one was due to a passenger activating the emergency push button. The remaining 17 incidents were caused by equipment-related faults.

To ensure that the MRT system operates safely, reliably and efficiently, the two MRT operators carry out regular preventive maintenance on the systems. The maintenance programme the operators follow is based on the Original Equipment Manufacturers’ manuals, codes of practices and industry standards.

The driverless trains have the same basic safety features as that for trains operated by drivers. For example, they have an Automatic Train Protection system that ensures trains keep a minimum safety distance between each other, limits the speed of trains to safe levels and ensures that the doors open on the correct side of the trains. In addition, the driverless train systems have additional features for monitoring and fault reporting purposes. The critical systems of the driverless trains are also fully backed up to ensure that the train service can still continue to operate in the event of failure of the primary systems.

Besides the additional features, the interior of the driverless trains can be monitored by officers in the Operation Control Centre (OCC) through the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems. In the event of an incident, the officers in the OCC can assess and take action to address the situation. The operators also typically station a customer service officer (CSO) in each driverless train during peak periods. In event of any system fault, the CSO can provide fast recovery to resume train service and attend to passengers who are in need.

asked the Minister for Transport when can the public expect the MRT lines to be extended to the East Coast which has been drawing huge crowds especially on weekends and public holidays.

As part of the Land Transport Masterplan, the Eastern Region Line (ERL) will be built by 2020. The ERL will serve residents in Tanjong Rhu, Marine Parade, Siglap, Bedok South and Upper East Coast areas. Visitors to the area will find it even more convenient to use public transport.

LTA is currently studying the precise alignment of the ERL and the location of each station. It has to consider many factors such as travel demand, land use patterns, ease of access, physical site characteristics and local constraints, in consultation with planning agencies such as the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). More details will be announced when they become available.

Today, the East Coast area is well-served by many bus services along East Coast Road, Upper East Coast Road and Marine Parade Road. These buses provide direct connections to the Central Business District (CBD), many major destinations across Singapore, and also link to nearby MRT stations on the East-West Line, such as Eunos, Kembangan and Bedok. In addition, the East Coast Park is served by an additional bus service on weekends and public holidays to cater to the higher travel demand. There is also a variety of non-basic services that serve different needs, including Fast Forward or Express, Night, Premium and Shuttle services.

asked the Minister for Law (a) what is the number of cases referred to the Community Mediation Centre annually for the last two years; (b) what is the breakdown for the common cases referred; and (c) how many were successfully mediated and how many proceeded with legal course of action following the mediation.

What is the number of cases referred to the Community Mediation Centre annually for the last two years?

In 2007, 1,488 cases were registered for mediation at the Community Mediation Centre (CMC). In 2008, this figure increased by approximately 10% to 1,641. Ninety-one percent of these cases were channelled to the CMC through referrals by frontline public agencies such as the Housing and Development Board, the Police, the Courts and through Members of Parliament.

What is the breakdown for the common cases referred?

A majority of the cases handled by the CMC in 2007 and 2008 involved disputes between neighbours, which formed approximately 54% of CMC’s total caseload for the two years. Approximately 22% of the disputes involved conflicts between family members (13%) and disputes between acquaintances (9%), typically pertaining to relational and monetary matters. The remaining 24% involved relational conflicts involving mainly landlords and tenants, and disputes between hawkers and between colleagues.

How many were successfully mediated and how many proceeded with legal course of action following the mediation?

A total of 539 and 684 or about 39% of all registered cases in 2007 and 2008 proceeded to mediation*. Of those cases that were mediated, about three in four cases were successfully resolved through the signing of a settlement agreement.

As parties who choose to bring their disputes to the Court would usually approach the Courts directly, the CMC does not have exact statistics relating to the number of mediated cases that proceeded with legal action. However, based on CMC’s records, the recidivism rate for CMC mediated settlements, where parties seek to re-open the mediation process to further negotiate or work through the terms of the settlement, is fairly low, at approximately 2%. In this regard, parties who are unhappy with their mediated settlements are strongly encouraged to meet for a further mediation session at the CMC to work through their differences, before considering further courses of action.

*As the nature of mediation is voluntary (except for those cases which are compulsorily referred by a Magistrate under Section 15 of the CMC Act), the CMC can only facilitate a mediation session upon obtaining the consent from all parties to the dispute. The respondent(s) may turn down/fail to respond to the CMC’s invitation to attend a mediation session for various personal reasons. In such cases (and after active persuasion where appropriate), the CMC would respect the parties’ wishes and would not arrange for a mediation session.

asked the Minister for Manpower what are the reasons for the manufacturing sector shedding 4,600 local jobs while adding 24,100 foreign jobs in the year 2008.

In 2008, total employment in manufacturing grew by 19,500. The growth came largely in the earlier part of the year. Although some companies had cut their headcount, others were still growing and expanding. Given the tight labour market then with record local employment rate of 77.0%, manufacturing companies which were still growing had to recruit foreign manpower to meet their needs. However, as the economic downturn deepened, both foreign and local employment in manufacturing fell towards the end of the

year. Job losses in the manufacturing sector were more than offset by jobs created in other sectors as overall local employment grew by 64,700 in 2008.

The introduction of schemes such as the Jobs Credit and Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (SPUR) launched in December 2008, have helped companies save jobs for local workers and upgrade their skills during the recession. Workers from manufacturing companies account for nearly half of all trainees committed to SPUR training.

asked the Minister for Manpower what steps is the Government taking to reach out to long-term unemployed residents to increase their employability or to assist them in their job search.

MOM and WDA have been working closely with the Community Development Councils (CDCs), the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i), and self-help groups (SHGs) to better reach out and assist Singaporeans on their employment and training needs.

The Career Centres at the CDCs and NTUC’s e2i provide a comprehensive suite of services to help unemployed Singaporeans find jobs. For job seekers who are not job ready, career centre officers would counsel them to attend training in employability skills, so that they are able to take on suitable jobs. For those who are job ready, the career centres offer a variety of help to match them with suitable employers, including one-to-one job referrals to specific companies, targeted walk-in interviews with specific companies, and sector-based job placement exercises. This helps to address the varying needs of job seekers and employers.

In addition, since August 2006, the SHGs, with the support of WDA, have been running a CareerLink Plus (CLP) Programme which provides targeted assistance to the long-term unemployed. Under CLP’s case-management approach, job seekers are referred from the SHGs to the Careerlink Plus Centre for intensive counselling by dedicated Case Management officers who also provide after care services to help them adjust and stay in their jobs. In the first six months of 2009, the CLP centre served over 1,420 job seekers and placed 376 into jobs. Cumulatively since August 2006, the centre has served nearly 7,880 job seekers and placed over 2,100 into jobs*.

*Cumulative figures are summations of annual figures since Aug 2006 and may include double counting as some job seekers sought assistance more than once.

asked the Minister for Manpower (a) if he will provide an update on the employment trend for PMETs in the past 12 months, in view of the current economic situation; (b) what is the unemployment rate for PMETs and the average period that PMETs are unemployed; and (c) whether there has been an impact on salary levels/compensation for PMETs when they are re-employed.

Reflecting the improving educational profile of the population and demand for higher-skilled workers, the share of PMETs in the resident workforce rose to 51% in 2008, up from 41% a decade ago.

As at June 2008, the unemployment rate for PMETs stood at 2.5%. This is substantially lower than the total resident unemployment rate, and reflects the higher employability of PMETs. The median duration of unemployment was eight weeks.

As economic conditions worsened, there has been a broad-based increase in unemployment affecting all age and education groups. Due to the greater share of PMETs in the resident labour force, PMETs formed the largest group among residents made redundant in 2008 (49%) and also in Q1 2009 (54%). The unemployment rates for Degree and Polytechnic Diploma holders, many of whom were PMETS, were 3.0% and 4.1% respectively in March 2009, up from 1.8% and 2.3% a year ago. Nevertheless, their rates were still lower than the total resident unemployment rate. Key findings on the employment and unemployment of residents by occupation for 2009 will be released in the mid-year Labour Force survey to be published in end-November 2009.

Salary upon re-employment depends very much on the nature of the work and the value of the job. Such information requires longitudinal studies that will need much time, effort and resources, and are not conducted routinely by MOM. It is better that we focus our resources to help displaced PMETs upgrade, refresh their skills and find new opportunities.