NATIONAL SERVICEMEN (Deaths)

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Mr Chiam See Tong asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence how many National Servicemen have been killed in the course of doing their national service since national service was first made compulsory for young male Singapore citizens.

The Second Minister for Defence (BG Lee Hsien Loong) (for the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence): Mr Speaker, Sir, I am answering on behalf of my Minister.

No figures are available for 1967 and 1968. From 1969 to the present, out of 250,000 national servicemen who have served in the SAF, 54 have died during training, an average of three per year.

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Does the Minister have equivalent statistics of NS trainees who have been killed in Germany and Switzerland? If so, could he please let us know the comparable figures?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not have the figures with me.

Mr Chiam See Tong: What effort is Mindef taking to reduce the number of deaths to perhaps zero defect, as they say in the industry. We want to have no deaths at all. Is the Ministry taking steps to achieve that target?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, the zero defect philosophy is very much the approach of the SAF. The fact that we have had 54 deaths out of a quarter million trainees shows how effective we have been in making sure our national servicemen get effective, valuable, safe training. To make sure that nobody is exposed to unnecessary risks during his national service, we have training safety directives. We have instructions on how training should be conducted, what precautions must be taken, what preparations the soldiers must go through before they are allowed to undergo training. All the Members here who have been national servicemen would have heard of the book called "TSR", Training Safety Regulations. It is a thick blue book, specifying all the precautions which must be taken before any training can be carried out, be it watermanship training, be it helicopter drills, be it parachuting, be it live firing exercises. In every case there are comprehensive precautions laid down and stringent inspections to make sure that training is properly carried out. Despite that, from time to time accidents happen. And when they do, it is Mindef's responsibility to make sure that the accident is thoroughly investigated. If anybody is at fault, this will be uncovered and the culprit will be punished. And if there are any lessons to be learnt so that similar accidents can be in future avoided, they will be noted.

Deaths of national servicemen are not treated lightly. Each time one happens, we conduct a Committee of Inquiry. This is not an internal investigation, not even a Board of Inquiry, but a Committee of Inquiry comprising people from outside Mindef. The Chairman must be from another Ministry and there is always a doctor on the Committee. They will investigate not just the immediate cause of the accident, but also the training which the serviceman was involved in and whether any remedial action is called for. All these reports go to the Armed Forces Council chaired by the Minister, and we discuss them personally. So everything possible to make training safe is done. If the Member for Potong Pasir has any further ideas on how to make training even safer, we will be happy to consider them.

Mr Chiam See Tong: If the Minister has any figures of very serious injuries, perhaps he could let the House know, and also whether any national service boys have been put into our mental hospitals.

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, if the Member would like to frame his questions in writing, he would get answers to them.