Staff Strength at Home Team Agencies as Numbers of New Citizens and Foreigners Rise

Mrs Lina Chiam asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs what are the plans put in place to increase the staff strength of the police force and other related agencies to cope with the tsunami of foreigners and new citizens in respect of crime enforcement and other related matters.

The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M) (for the Minister for Home Affairs): Mr Speaker, since 2008, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Home Team departments have grown our frontline manpower by more than 2,000 officers, from 15,500 to 17,700. We will be adding another 1,400 officers this year.

The Ministry has introduced a range of measures to encourage Singaporeans to take up a career with the Home Team. Since 2010, we have taken several steps to make the career of a uniformed Junior Officer more attractive as they form the core of our frontline force. These initiatives include more academic upgrading opportunities for officers, and promoting more promising Junior Officers to the Senior Officer Corp. These measures are aimed at meeting the academic and career aspirations of our younger generation officers. Last year, we introduced a new scholarship scheme for polytechnic students, called the HOME Study Award. This enhanced scheme allows us to attract talented individuals interested to contribute to Singapore's safety and security to join the Home Team earlier.

This year, we will step up our recruitment efforts to new initiatives such as the Next-Generation Frontline Policing. We will ensure that our pay remains competitive to attract suitable and committed new recruits. We will also review our retention scheme to ensure that good officers continue to remain in the service. While MHA will continue to harness technology, maintaining safety and security will always be manpower intensive. MHA will also actively work with our community partners to keep Singapore safe and secure.

Mrs Lina Chiam (Non-Constituency Member): Sir, I thank the Minister of State. I have two supplementary questions. First, what is the Government doing currently to prevent low level money laundering such as those in connection with our casinos? Secondly, given that a number of widely reported murder cases over the past few years that involved people who are not Singaporeans, what is the Government and the Police Force doing to assure Singaporeans that violent crime is not surging as we open our doors to others who contribute to our economy?

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Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M: Mr Speaker, those are specific questions for numbers that the Member could file a Parliamentary Question (PQ) for. Generally, the increase in manpower within the Home Team is to address issues that the population faces on security and safety. As we have replied previously, we are keeping up the manpower increases with the population increase, in addition to tourist arrivals as well as hosting more events in Singapore. As an overall strategy, yes, we will have to do more if there are particular increases in particular crimes, but these are particular issues which we will handle as they come.