Sufficiency of Fines to Deter Officers in Manpower Ministry's Agencies from Carrying Out Unsafe Activities

8 Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Manpower whether fines meted out to agencies under the Ministry's charge are sufficient deterrence to ensure that unsafe activities are not carried out by the agencies' officers.

The Senior Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Zaqy Mohamad) (for the Minister for Manpower): The Government takes workplace safety and health extremely seriously. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) investigates every fatal case thoroughly to ascertain the culpable parties and we will not hesitate to take action against those responsible if wrongdoing is found. This includes prosecuting the agencies, organisations, culpable senior management and individuals.

Culpable parties will be taken to task under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, where the maximum financial penalty for an organisation and for an individual guilty of an offence under the Act, is a fine of up to $500,000 and $200,000 respectively. An individual can also be imprisoned for up to two years in addition to any fine.

These penalties are reviewed regularly. Organisations and individuals found guilty under the Act will also suffer reputational damage.

Since the promulgation of the Act in 2006, our workplace fatality rate has improved significantly from 3.1 per 100,000 workers in 2006, to around 1.0 today. However, Speaker, every fatality is one too many. We will continue to strive towards a workplace fatality rate of below 1.0 by 2028. Only four countries in the world have achieved this consistently ─ that is the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden and Germany. No Asian country has done so on a consistent basis. So, we set high standards for ourselves.

Improving workplace safety and health cannot be achieved through law and punishments alone. In addition to a good regulatory framework and putting in place sound policies, it is crucial to build a sustainable workplace safety and health culture. This requires a sustained and collective effort by organisations, management, industry associations, union leaders and workers.

Leaders in the organisations must set the tone and foster a culture and mindset where safety is second nature and where workers feel safe to report unsafe workplace practices to their employers, supervisors or union leaders. Employers must ensure that their workers are properly trained and equipped with workplace safety and health capability and knowledge; and use technology to detect and prevent workplace accidents.

Workers themselves must play their part to follow safe work procedures and report unsafe work practices to the appropriate authority. This ensures their own and their colleagues' safety, so that every worker can return safely home to their loved ones.

On the Government's part, we have implemented various measures and programmes over the years to enhance workplace safety and health. Most recently, the Multi-Agency Workplace Safety and Health Taskforce, or MAST, introduced a series of measures after the Heightened Safety Period, or HSP, to strengthen workplace safety and health ownership and capabilities at the sectoral, company and individual levels.

For example, we will require Chief Executives (CEs) and Board Directors of all companies in higher-risk industries to attend a programme on how to meet their workplace safety and health responsibilities and develop their companies' workplace safety and health capabilities.

Sir, workplace safety and health standards apply equally to the private and public sectors. I would like to reassure Members of this House that MOM is impartial in our dealings with both public agencies and private organisations, be it in terms of inspections or taking appropriate enforcement actions.

Mr Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is good to hear from the Senior Minister of State that we have got this target in mind, to bring our fatality rates down to 1.0. And I do hope that we do achieve that consistently in the future.

The one supplementary question that I had was, in terms of the compensation of the office holders who are involved in overseeing workplace safety and health, when there is a public agency involved — because I think the concern here is that, when the public agencies are given the fines, that is obviously fining the public agency. Then of course, that comes from public funds. So, how do we ensure that the public officers who are in charge, how do they, apart from the usual key performance indicators (KPIs) that ensure they do their jobs well and the usual appraisals, is there an element of compensation that is linked to these safety KPIs?

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: Can I ask the Member to clarify? I did not quite get the question. Is the question more, in terms of whether there is a public sector KPI or —

Ms He Ting Ru: Sorry. When the public officers are responsible for safety records, is there an element of their compensation or any KPI that is tied to the safety record of the agencies under their charge?

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: I am not familiar with the individual compensation formulae for Public Service officers. You may want to try to ask the Public Service Division (PSD) on that one.

What I am quite certain about is that many of our agencies – in fact, I think all of our agencies – have got a KPI for workplace, safety and health, especially for those overseeing high-risk projects. This is where I am quite familiar with – many of them have reporting standards and of late, some, for example, like the Land Transport Authority (LTA), have improved their standards by including near-miss reporting, so that they can reduce injury rates. Our agencies do track this. I think you can also seek clarification subsequently, as there is a Ministerial Statement is coming up, on how the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment and National Environment Agency do their tracking. That is a good example, as well, in terms of how agencies track and monitor their safety records.

Mr Speaker: Mr Melvin Yong.

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye (Radin Mas): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for his answers. I think the Senior Minister of State would know, throughout the years, I have been calling for a dedicated WSH officer for every organisation so that there is a focus on workplace safety.

I would like to ask, for the public agencies, do they each have a dedicated WSH officer? And if no, are there any plans – at least for the Public Service – to start having one to focus on some of these projects that have a higher risk, so that risk assessments can be done properly?

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: I thank the Member for his supplementary question. Following HSP, as I have shared in my reply earlier, we have set up MAST. In that team, we have various Ministries who are involved in high-risk projects, where we track performance across not just the sectors, Ministries and contracts, but also the whole sector as a whole.

To some extent, at the management level, there is expectation that they watch this quite closely. The statistics also show the results. If you look at where we were pre-HSP, our fatality rate was about 1.5 per 100,000 workers. During HSP, it dropped to 0.8 per 100,000 workers. Having said that, that is over a short period of time.

Nonetheless, we look at improving practices as a whole, beyond just having one officer because it is not possible to monitor so many projects across the board. I think it is important that every project is closely watched by the respective project officers. That is why I also mentioned the expectations on the CEs and the board of directors to also be involved and trained.

Hence, we have put in place, as one of the measures of MAST, to have CEs and board of directors attend courses because they cannot just outsource it to someone and say, "no, we have been audited by external party and the external party says 'okay'." That is not sufficient. You need ownership at the senior management level and not just down to one officer. I think that makes a difference because they allocate resources, they put the focus, they put the KPIs. That sets the tone and culture; not just at the sectoral or Government level, but across every company. We need to put that in place to make it sustainable.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Jamus Lim.

Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim (Sengkang): I thank the Senior Minister of State's first response. I wish to elaborate a little bit on a specific case that I believe he is familiar with, about a former investigation officer who was charged with molestation against three women while conducting investigation on behalf of the Health Sciences Authority. The point I wish to raise is that, that individual who was charged the year before worked for WSH Experts, which is an outsourced agency.

I mentioned this because all individuals, whether contractors or agents directly employed by the Government are subject to the stipulations of the law. But nevertheless, when this form of law enforcement is outsourced, one wonders, whether these external contractors are put under the same rigours of clearance before employment, because they are after all, carrying out an official duty.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: Mr Speaker, I thank the Member for his question. I have to say this is not related to the Parliamentary Question and I think the Member may want to file a separate one.

Generally, I wish to assure Members that as part of Government contracting, there are certain rigours in place. It is not possible to check the character of every single one who comes into contract with the Government, but we do our best to try.

Anyway, if the Member would like more details on the particular case, do file a separate question.