DESTITUTE PERSONS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Community Development (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Sir, this Bill seeks to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, the Destitute Persons Act to provide for new provisions to enable the Director Social Welfare to prefer charges against habitual offenders, to increase the penalty for abscondence from custody, to impose a penalty for disorderly behaviour in a welfare home, to enable the Minister to appoint a Review Committee to review the period of stay in a welfare home, and to enable the Director Social Welfare to take fingerprint impressions for identification purposes.

The Destitute Persons Act was introduced in 1965 to replace the Vagrancy Ordinance. The Vagrancy Ordinance had treated any beggar or vagrant as a criminal. It failed to distinguish between the destitute individual and the petty criminal. The destitute was given a prison sentence upon conviction as though he was a criminal.

The Destitute Persons Act removed begging in public from the list of minor offences and treated begging as a social problem instead. Beggars and vagrants found in public places were provided with care and shelter in Government welfare homes.

It has been 23 years since the Destitute Persons Act was introduced. Much water has gone under the bridge.

For one, the economic problems of the 1960s against which the Destitute Persons Act was introduced are no longer with us. In the early 1960s, there were widespread poverty, squatter housing, high unemployment, resulting in many vagrants and beggars. Child beggars were also a common sight.

Today, no one needs to beg for a living. The economic progress which we have achieved has provided job opportunities for all. A person with absolutely no resources to rely on and who is unable to fend for himself will be given assistance and, where necessary, accommodation in government welfare homes.

But despite the good economic growth and the much improved housing and social conditions, there are still some beggars and vagrants. There are, in our population, able-bodied layabouts who do not care to work for a living. They live off the sympathy and generosity of others. For them, begging is an easy and lucrative way to make a living. Some of them are by no means poor.

In 1987, my staff picked up a male beggar who had bank accounts totalling $132,000. Another beggar had $29,000 in his bank. Last year, a beggar who was picked up had about $13,000 in his possession. These beggars are, of course, the exceptions. But there is no reason for them to beg.

A stay in a welfare home does nothing to transform such able-bodied or financially self-sufficient and habitual beggars into economically useful citizens. Not only do they occupy scarce bed space, they have also come to regard their stay in the welfare homes as a comfortable sojourn in their life. Government welfare homes are not meant for them.

Government welfare homes are meant for those who are unable to care for themselves or who after a short-term rehabilitation can be settled back into a self-supporting lifestyle. They are ineffective and inappropriate for the able-bodied but chronically indequate person who prefers begging to working and who is resistant to change in lifestyle.

It is therefore necessary to differentiate the able-bodied person, who finds begging an easy option to working for his living, from the truly destitute who is in need of compassion, care and concern. The latter will be given shelter in our welfare homes. But we should not tolerate habitual beggars or encourage them in any way by continuing to be lenient. Such persons are more in need of discipline than care. A fine or a prison term is more effective in discouraging such beggars.

This new Act will empower the Director of Social Welfare to prefer charges against habitual beggars. A habitual beggar who is found begging will, under this Act, be guilty of an offence and, when convicted, may be fined a sum not exceeding $3,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. A habitual beggar is one who at least on two previous occasions was found begging and sent to a welfare home.

Government welfare homes are also not a penal institution. Life there, although not luxurious, is decent. Residents are well treated. They have three meals a day, clean beds and recreational facilities. There are work programmes for those who can work and such persons receive an allowance. Hence, there is no reason for a person in a welfare home to abscond. Yet over the past three years, an average of 159 residents absconded annually. It is a sheer waste of time and manpower and public funds to round up a person time and again to have him abscond again. During the last three years, of the 660 persons picked up, 220 were abscondees and 168 were ex-residents of welfare homes. The ex-residents were discharged to their care-person but they refused to settle down and reverted to begging as it was easy.

The penalty for abscondence will therefore be increased from a term not exceeding three months imprisonment to a term not exceeding six months imprisonment, so as to discourage abscondence.

There is also a new provision to provide for a fine not exceeding $3,000 or imprisonment term not exceeding two years for disorderly behaviour in the welfare home.

The Act will also empower the Minister to appoint a Review Committee comprising community leaders and responsible citizens to review the care of every resident in our welfare home and to recommend his discharge from the home. No one needs to stay in our welfare home longer than is necessary.

Another significant new feature in this Act is the finger printing and photographing of destitute persons admitted into a welfare home. This is necessary for identification purposes as some residents are psychiatrically disordered or intellectually disabled and some have been known to throw away their identity cards to avoid identification.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed. 1.45 pm

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: Mr Speaker, Sir, I feel that, in spite of the explanation given by the Minister a little while ago, many provisions here do not seem to treat a person as a human being. Very severe penalties are imposed and a person who is called a destitute is treated almost like a criminal. No real efforts can be seen for rehabilitation and the whole thing is intended more as a cover-up than an attempt to help the destitute.

The Minister himself has just mentioned the fact that 159 people have absconded yearly. Why should people abscond if the welfare homes are so very good? Has he ever tasted the food given in one of those welfare homes? "Three meals are given a day", he said. Has he ever been there, I wonder? I have been. I do not know whether he has. You know, they have to get food from everywhere. If anyone takes food to them, however small a quantity, they are so happy which only shows that they never really have enough.

Sir, the extension of detention of 30 days gives the officer too much power. And there is always the tendency to misuse and abuse this power, the power similar to section 55 of the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act, to keep a person under detention for one whole month. Surely the person should be given some of his basic human rights. If they find it so difficult to check on these people, why can the department not increase the staff? That should be the more rational way of doing things, rather than merely keeping them under lock and key for a certain length of time.

I would like to refer to the penalties which are meted out to destitutes, however you may want to define them. Because, after all, this definition is all very subjective and it all depends on the officer who is doing the job. As I said, mistakes can always to made. I went to a welfare home only a couple of weeks back and there was one person who complained to me about how he was picked up although he was not a vagrant and was only going about his usual routine. He was very well dressed. He managed to earn his own living. But he was, I suppose, treated as a vagrant. I asked the officer who was with us what he thought of the explanation given to me, and he said that probably the Government thought he was a vagrant and therefore took him along to the welfare home. Therefore, Sir, mistakes can be made. And if people want to run away from these welfare homes, it must tell the Government that there is something very wrong there. If the home is good and people do enjoy living under such circumstances, why should they want to run away? There is no point. Therefore, the Government must find out why people beg. The Minister says they do not care to work for a living. How does the Government know that? Have they been given the proper jobs which they could do? It is no use asking an engineer to sweep the drain. Or a doctor to do something which he is not trained for.

The Minister for National Development (Mr S. Dhanabalan): Doctor vagrant!

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: Therefore, Sir, we must give jobs with adequate pay to the person and also make sure that the person can do the job in his usual way.

The Minister says that no one needs to beg for a living. If that should really be true, there would not be beggars around. There could not be so many professional beggars having so much money, as he says. This idea of arresting everybody along the streets and keeping them away reminds me, Sir, of the old days when the Prime Minister used to order that all attap huts by the road-side be fenced off with some painted-up fencing so as not to allow visitors coming in to Singapore see the dilapidated houses and thus think that everything was nice and OK. You remember, Sir, the Old Airport Road. All the houses there were very old and people were living there. The Government ordered fencings to be put to cover up the slums in order to show that Singapore was not so bad after all. Similarly, in this case, there is this little bit of a cover-up. And what reason is there for imposing a sentence of $3,000 and two years? Surely they are not criminals. We might as well ask them to hang themselves. Has a beggar $3,000 to pay? And if he has not, what does he do? Go to prison and get worse food there? I wonder whether the Minister has ever been inside a prison. I have. Thanks to Lee Kuan Yew.

Therefore, Sir, I believe these clauses are all too draconian. They are too severe. Taking fingerprint impressions and photographs of them means treating them all as criminals. That should not be done. I would suggest that more attention be paid to investigations as to why these people have to beg in the streets and the Government should do everything it can to rehabilitate the beggars.

Dr S. Vasoo: Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to support the Bill because the Bill provides a fairly comprehensive approach to deal with the modern problems of beggary. The NCMP, Dr Lee, has said that there is still serious destitution in Singapore and destitutes are being criminalized. But I wonder whether he has, done any analysis and reviewed some of the problems relating to these people. I note that many of these people who are involved in beggary and other related activities are, in fact, people who have serious mental and other problems. They have been discharged from Woodbridge Hospital and subsequently sent to their homes. They somehow leave their homes and then get into a state of vagrancy. These are the people that we are dealing with. People who are partially mentally deranged and do not know where to operate. Some of these cases require rehabilitation. They require support. I see the Bill makes provisions to assist them.

I feel that this problem needs to be addressed because Singapore is an open place. I note that recently beggary has increased in Singapore. So unless we look at a more constructive approach to deal with the problem, this problem will always remain. It may be impossible to totally eradicate this problem because if there are opportunities available to make money from beggary, there is likely to be people to be involved in this.

Sir, what is important is to think of an effective rehabilitation scheme because many of them are very young adults who are less than 40 years old. And if that is the age range, I feel that more effective rehabilitation measures should be made available to the homes to help them to gain some form of skills and to be placed in gainful employment. We should try to place them on relevant gainful employment and motivate them to work. Though I agree that it is a difficult task, but it is not impossible to place more effort in rehabilitating them. Sir, if efforts are placed on this, I know that they will subsequently be discharged and be able to get back to the community to be engaged in some form of gainful living.

I would like to bring up several matters for the Minister to clarify. First, clause 2(1),paragraphs (a) and (b) seem to suggest a very vague definition of an idle person and who can be identified as having no visible means of subsistence. Some of us who may be idling around Orchard Road and others who appear to have no visible means may be hauled in under this Act. I trust there will be careful exercise and discretion in terms of identifying those who are found to be destitutes. I suggest that clause 2(1) (a) and (b) should be read together so that it will provide a clearer definition and identification of destitute persons.

Sir, in order that there is a recourse for some people who are taken into custody, their cases need to be reviewed. This is because there may be some people who, feel lost and not being able to say for sure at that point in time where they are. They may not necessarily be destitutes.

Second, I recommend that the review board should have powers within the 30 days to initiate for investigations and to review such cases so that people who may not necessarily be destitutes are not con- fined in the Homes. So if this properly exercised, then I think we will then be able to identify those who are really destitutes and those who need to be rehabilitated.

The third area is the fine imposed on family members or the care-givers. I think this is a bit too severe. People who have attempted to give support, in the first place, to destitute people should be persuaded further to look after them but not be fined. This may create further rift and problems between the destitutes and their care givers. To impose this burden on the care givers is, in fact, a bit too stiff.

The other matter that I want to bring up is the penalty on family members if they do not inform the Director within 24 hours of ceasing their care for a destitute. This period is rather short because it takes a much longer time than a day to decide what needs to be done for the destitute. So I hope that these aspects will be carefully reviewed and that the Minister will provide further clarification on the matters raised.

Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Mr Speaker, Sir, may I be allowed to ask a clarification from the Minister in regard to clause 2(2), definition of begging.

'For the purposes of this Act, a person shall be deemed to be begging if his conduct is calculated to induce the giving of alms, whether or not there is any pretence of singing, playing, performing, offering anything for sale or otherwise.'

Sir, I have visited England, Europe, Australia. I notice that in public places young people do come out into the open singing, playing and performing, and I think it gives colour and life to those countries, especially to visitors there. I am just wondering that if there are people who would genuinely like to come forward to give some kind of performance in public places and not pretend, and if money should be thrown to them, whether or not they will be hauled up for begging?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: I thank Members for their comments, suggestions and contributions.

Sir, the Government does not want to just pick up anybody from the streets and put them away in the welfare home, and therefore commit manpower and spend a lot of time and public money looking after them, taking care of their health and so on. That is not for the Government to do. The Government wants to take care of those people who are homeless, destitutes, in the streets and give them board and shelter and, if they are able-bodied, help them to re-integrate back into society so that they can become useful citizens. But there are people who just are not amenable to rehabilitation or welfare treatment. They prefer to go back to the streets to beg. For such able-bodied persons there is no need for them to beg. There are jobs available. There are jobs that go a-begging. We have 150,000 or more foreign workers. Why is there a need for able-bodied persons to beg? This Bill is directed at such people. It is not directed at people who are unable to work, who are homeless, destitutes or vagrants. For these categories of people, we will look after them in the welfare home. The welfare home is not that bad a place. I have been there. I know Dr Lee went there the other day and my officers told me about that. He went there unannounced, uninvited.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: Is the Minister saying that we have to be invited in order to visit a welfare home?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, the welfare institution is a Government institution. I think it is not right for anybody just to walk in there and say, "I want to do this." Of course, if the Member wishes to see the place and visit a person, by all means, do that, but at least he should have the courtesy to tell the Superintendent beforehand that that is being done. I am not objecting to his visit because I think it is an eye-opener to him that the welfare home, after all, is not that bad. If it were, I am sure he will not find residents there; they would all have gone away. There is no security in the home. It is not a prison. That is why people can walk in and out of the place.

Despite the comfort or the decent life in the home, there are still people who prefer to be outside than to be confined in the institution. The person who asked Dr Lee to go to the home to visit him is one such person. He prefers to be out rather than to stay in the home. He is a vagrant. There were complaints received about him, and therefore he was picked up and housed in the home. If he has visible means of support and there is somebody else looking after him, by all means, let the person look after him. In fact, he asked Dr Lee to be his care person, from what I understand. If Dr Lee is willing to do that, we will release the person to him.

But Dr Vasoo has said, "Why do we want to penalize the care person?" It is because there are residents in such homes who actually want to get out and therefore persuade someone to take them away. And if the care person takes no responsibility for this destitute, and he goes back into the streets to beg again. So we must place some responsibility on that care person, who wants to be a care-giver, to really want to look after the destitute rather than to give an excuse for the destitute to get out of the home.

Therefore, the penalties in this Bill are meant for the hardcore cases. In the old Act the maximum of three months' imprisonment is actually very lenient, and in imposing this old penalty the court actually is tied down to the maximum that is allowed in the law. So more often than not we see the person who has been imprisoned for only a month really, goes back again to the streets begging when he is released. So we have to extend this maximum to six months instead of the existing three months.

It is a load of rubbish, I would say, of Dr Lee's earlier remark that these people do not have enough to eat. There is more than enough to eat. In the past the food was cooked in the home but because of some health control problems we decided to let outside caterers provide three meals a day, and this is not insignificant compared to what many people outside the home get.

On clause 2(2) of this Bill, let me assure the Member that if he were confronted or approached by a welfare officer, and if he is able to account for his demeanour, I am sure he will not be treated as a vagrant. This provision is only for people who cannot explain or cannot account for their behaviour, eg, they cannot say where they come from, and so on, and therefore the welfare officer thinks that for their own welfare they should be placed in a home for investigation. The one-month period seemed adequate at first but we know that at times when we carry out a major operation there are many beggars and vagrants being placed in the home, and we need more time. There is no point for the welfare officers to keep these vagrants or these destitutes longer than is necessary. The sooner we finish the job,the sooner we let him out if there is a place for him to go to. For those who can be rehabilitated, let me assure Dr Vasoo that we will try to do that and send the person back to society.

As for Mr Chiam's comments, let me assure him that if a person is destitute and he has no place to go, and if he were to perform in a public place and becomes a busker - I think that is what the Member is referring to - then I think he will be picked up by the Environment Ministry, if not by the MCD, for causing a nuisance in a public street and noise pollution. There are times when a person is allowed to perform in public places, eg, during our cultural festivals. Then I think in those circumstances these musicians or show-biz persons would not be mistaken for vagrants or beggars.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: Explanation.

Mr Speaker: All right.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: First, about my trying to impose myself on the welfare home. It was not true, Sir. I went there, true, without informing them well beforehand but that was because I wanted to know what was actually happening inside the Home. And if the officer-in-charge had said no, we would have walked away. That was all there was to it. He agreed to show us around.

To say that these people have enough to eat, well, it is almost like a case of Oliver Twist, Sir, always asking for more. If they really had enough food to eat, why should they ask for more? Simple common sense should tell the Minister that. I must also remind the Minister as well as Dr Vasoo, that all these people who have been considered destitute are usually old, who cannot do any work, and who are in many ways disabled. Therefore special considerations must be given to them. The fact that the Minister seems to have known so very quickly that I had gone to visit the welfare home shows what tight control the PAP has over all the organizations in Singapore. So can you imagine what happens if you have Big Brother there? He has his eyes all over you. You do not know what he is going to say or what he is going to do. I think the Government should relax a bit and not impose its views too much, on the officers who are looking after the place. Then maybe we can have a better Singapore.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Sir, the only instance as was told to me why the residents asked for more was when Dr Lee visited the home with some of his friends. He brought some tangerine, and some cakes, but there was not enough to share around. So they asked for more. Had he brought enough, I think they would not ask for it. So the Home Superintendent, I was told, decided that in order to be fair they gave those cakes and tangerine only to the ladies rather than to the men because there were fewer women than men.

Mr Speaker: I think he wants to clarify about the amount of food.

Dr Lee Siew-Choh: If I had the salary of the Minister, I would not mind giving them more.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: So when Dr Lee visited the home, it was between 9.30 and 10.30. That was not meal time and so he could not have known for a fact that they did not have enough to eat. He could not have known. It is not the tight control that we exercise that I come to know of Dr Lee's visit. Because if I did not know of the visit, he will stand here and say, "How's that the Minister does not know. That was a failing in the system." Sir, everything that happens in a Government department, as Ministers, we have a responsibility to know as much as possible. We do not know and we cannot pretend to know every detail of it. But the fact that Dr Lee bothered to show his concern for the welfare of the residents in the home, it was reported to me. There is nothing wrong with that.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Mr Wong Kan Seng].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.