Residential Addresses Falsely Declared as Housing Addresses for Foreign Workers in Past Five Years
Ministry of ManpowerSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns the prevalence of falsely declared residential addresses for foreign workers and the enforcement measures taken to ensure the accuracy of housing data. Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo stated that employers must report addresses through an online service that validates occupancy limits and official tenancy registrations. She highlighted that the 2018 Foreign Worker Tenant Enquiry System allows homeowners to verify registrants and block their addresses, contributing to an increase in detected cases. The Ministry of Manpower also performs proactive inspections and investigates discrepancies reported by homeowners to maintain data integrity. Culpable employers face hiring bars, while workers who knowingly provide false information have their work passes revoked to deter non-compliance.
Transcript
54 Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Manpower (a) in each year in the past five years, how many cases have there been of residential addresses being falsely declared as housing addresses for foreign workers; and (b) what measures are taken to ensure that housing addresses declared for foreign workers are accurate.
Mrs Josephine Teo: MOM takes a multi-pronged approach to ensure accurate addresses are declared for foreign workers. First, we hold employers responsible for reporting accurate residential addresses of their foreign workers. They are required to do so in the Online Foreign Worker Address Service. Employers remain responsible even when their workers source for their own accommodation. The online service ensures the occupancy limit of the address is not exceeded, and it also checks against tenancy registration records from the Housing and Development Board to ensure that the foreign worker is registered as a tenant by the homeowner.
Second, MOM introduced the Foreign Worker Tenant Enquiry System in December 2018 to help detect misuse of home addresses. Homeowners can use the system to check the details of foreign workers registered at their address, and report to MOM if there are discrepancies. A significant increase in the number of false declaration cases were detected this way, explaining the increase in number of cases in 2019 from the previous year. The Foreign Worker Tenant Enquiry System also allows homeowners to block their addresses in the system to prevent any registration of foreign workers.
Table 1 shows the number of cases from 2015 to 2019 involving false declaration of residential addresses as housing addresses for foreign workers. This includes cases reported by homeowners as well as proactive inspections by MOM.
When cases of false declaration of residential addresses are detected, employers and workers involved will be investigated. Culpable employers will be barred from hiring foreign workers and workers who knowingly provided false information will have their work passes revoked.