MALAYSIA-SINGAPORE AIRLINES (Staff recruitment)

Mr Lim Cheng Lock asked the Deputy Prime Minister whether he is aware that citizens educated in the Chinese, Malay and Tamil language streams are not given equal opportunities for recruitment in Malaysia-Singapore Airlines in the Republic in accordance with the declared policy of the Government of providing equal opportunities for citizens educated in the four language streams and that advertisements for staff vacancies are not inserted in the Chinese, Malay and Tamil newspapers, and if he will look into the matter and take appropriate action to ensure that the Airlines act in accordance with the policy of the Government.

Mr S. Rajaratnam (Acting Deputy Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, Sir, I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Member to two facts in the context of which the particular problem he has raised should be viewed.

The first is that the Singapore Government is only one of the shareholders of the Malaysia-Singapore Airlines.

The second is that the Company is run on a strictly commercial basis and that recruitment of staff should have relevance to the requirements and efficiency of the enterprise. In the airline business, the company and its employees have to deal with firms and passengers not only from Singapore but from all over the world. The medium of communication has to be one of the international languages - in our particular case, English - if the M.S.A. is to hold its own in an extremely competitive business. Therefore, there is no question of discrimination between different language groups in the matter of recruitment. The criteria is whether the candidate has the specific qualifications demanded by the job.

However, for the information of the hon. Member, there are nine senior staff and about 600 junior staff who have had part or most of their education in the Chinese, Malay or Tamil language streams. Only a few days ago, one of the accountant trainees selected for employment was from a Chinese High School and one of the two-system analysts selected was a graduate from Nanyang University. Conversely, a number of English-educated staff know Chinese, Malay or Tamil as well. Since it is essential, in the very nature of the airline business, for candidates to know English from whatever language stream they may come, they should have no difficulty reading vacancy announcements in English.