Proposal for Enforcement Powers under Animal and Birds Act to Be Given to Selected Non-Government Animal Welfare Groups

7 Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for National Development (a) whether the Ministry has studied the effectiveness of the enforcement powers provided to inspectors with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in England and Wales and officers with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and (b) whether the Ministry will consider providing similar enforcement powers under the Animals and Birds Act to selected non-Government animal welfare groups in Singapore.

The Senior Minister of State for National Development (Mr Tan Kiat How) (for the Minister for National Development): Mr Speaker, under the Animals and Birds Act, there are regulations and enforcement powers in place to safeguard animal welfare. Beyond putting in place laws and regulations, we take a multi-stakeholder approach to prevent cruelty to animals. For example, we work closely with stakeholders such as animal welfare groups and veterinarians to raise public awareness on responsible pet ownership.

We also take a serious view of all acts of animal cruelty. NParks investigates all feedback on animal abuse and will not hesitate to take the appropriate enforcement action.

As of now, we do not plan to confer enforcement powers to non-governmental organisations. However, we will study and learn from international best practices where appropriate, as we review and update our regulations.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Ng.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Thank you, Sir. I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. I do understand that we have an increasing number of animal welfare cases and complaints, as well, and also very limited manpower at AVS. So, could I ask whether we could study, not extending enforcement powers to all animal welfare groups, but maybe a select few, like the SPCA, who is already investigating animal cruelty on the ground?

Two, I thank the Senior Minister of State for saying that they are going to review international practices, but could we also review local ones where we have NEA already having the community volunteer programme, where they have basic enforcement powers given out to members of the public. So, whether MND can review that programme and see whether it can extend it also to AVA's work?

Mr Tan Kiat How: Mr Speaker, the short answer is, of course, we will review all local and international best practices. I sympathise and empathise with where the Member is coming from. Every time we read about cases of animal cruelty or abuse, we take those very seriously and we investigate. However, just to clarify, based on our data, we have not observed an increase in the number of animal cruelty and abuse cases over the last few years.

The number of feedback on animal cases has increased, partly because of greater public awareness of such issues. Our NParks officers and our relevant officers who are delegated the powers to investigate, look into every single feedback seriously. By far, the large majority of all the feedback is not related to animal abuse or cruelty. In fact, most of the time, they are feedback around nuisance about animals, for example, poor hygiene, smell or sometime, just neighbourly disputes. A very small proportion of the feedback is related to animal cruelty.

Having said that, there are indeed real challenges in terms of investigating those cases. The challenges include, for example, a lack of eyewitnesses or direct evidence, for example, CCTV footage, or that carcasses have been disposed for some time and post-mortem analysis is not possible, or that cases are not reported or are reported late.

That is where we work very closely with the animal welfare groups. They are valuable partners and stakeholders in this effort, raising public awareness, looking into those issues and making sure that cases are followed up quickly and expeditiously. So, I thank the Member for his suggestions and feedback. This is something we will continue to look at.

12.04 pm

Mr Speaker: Order. End of Question Time. Minister for National Development.

[Pursuant to Standing Order No 22(3), provided that Members had not asked for questions standing in their names to be postponed to a later Sitting day or withdrawn, written answers to questions not reached by the end of Question Time are reproduced in the Appendix.]