Clarification by Minister for Home Affairs
Ministry of Home AffairsSpeakers
Summary
This clarification concerns the morale of Police officers, where Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam addressed the impact of severe manpower shortages on the Force. While noting that officers maintain a strong esprit de corps and pride, Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam warned that workloads have reached unreasonable levels, particularly for investigating officers. He argued that these staffing challenges, compounded by broader public service growth caps and private sector shortages, pose a significant threat to long-term morale. Ultimately, Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam cautioned that the current situation is not entirely rosy and remains a serious concern that the ministry is actively trying to address.
Transcript
Mr Speaker: Minister Shanmugam, you wanted to make a clarification?
2.17 pm
The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr K Shanmugam): Thank you, Sir, for letting me make this clarification. This is the answer to Mr Singh's question on the morale of Police officers.
I went and checked. I think in February 2022 – that is now two years – I had said that the morale of Police officers is high based on surveys. What I would like to, and in the context of the future as well, I think I should, tell Members that while Police officers have a very strong esprit de corps, they are very happy to be part of the Police force, and are proud and their morale in terms of their work is very high, and I have talked about this in Parliament I believe, or certainly outside, we are facing a severe manpower shortage. I talked about it in the context of the Parti Liyani case, and we have talked about it in other contexts. For example, for investigating officers (IOs), we are short and we have not been able to overcome the shortage for a variety of reasons. That has put a lot of load on our officers. The load, I think, has gotten to unreasonable levels and that eventually would affect how Police officers view what they can do and what they cannot do. It would have an impact on morale. So, I should make that clear as well.
Apart from allegations that may be made, the load in terms of the workflow and the shortage of staff, there are shortages in different areas, but IO is one example we have talked about publicly. So, I want to caution that it is not as if everything is rosy and fine. I foresee potential problems. It is something that we are trying to address and deal with, but the solutions are not easy. Not least because there is an overall manpower shortage across the Public Service. There are caps on how much the Public Service can grow, for good reasons, because the private sector is short as well. This is affecting the entire country. It is affecting the Public Service, it is affecting the Police force and it is a matter of concern.
Any question on morale has to be qualified by this perspective. It is quite a serious perspective.