EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN WORKERS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Lee Boon Yang): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Employment of Foreign Workers (Amendment) Bill before the House today seeks to amend the Employment of Foreign Workers Act to provide for the taking and recording of finger impressions of foreign workers working in Singapore.

Since the onset of the current economic downturn, there has been increasing incidence of illegal employment. For the first eight months of this year, more than 2,000 foreigners were caught working illegally without valid work permits. This is more than twice the number of such cases for the corresponding period last year. Furthermore, an increasing number of illegal workers were found to be immigration offenders. In fact, for the first eight months of this year, 50% of illegal workers were also immigration offenders compared to only 16% for the corresponding period last year.

The Work Permit Department has also detected an increasing number of cases of forgeries of the work permit card itself. Since April 1998, the number of forged work permit cards detected by the Department has averaged about 40 to 50 a month. This is significantly higher than in the past when very few cases of forged work permit cards were detected. Most of the forged work permit cards came from the construction sector. They were work permit cards for foreign construction workers.

The situation is not helped by the fact that many foreign workers do not carry their original work permit cards with them. Instead, they carry with them photocopies of the card as the originals are very often kept by their employers. These photocopies of the work permit cards are very often of poor quality and can also easily be forged.

The increasing number of illegal workers and rising incidences of forged work permit cards has made it more difficult for enforcement officers to identify the foreign workers. The current system for identifying foreign workers has two shortcomings. Firstly, existing security features on the work permit cards themselves are outdated and make the cards easier to forge. Secondly, the finger impressions or fingerprints of the work permit holders are not captured on the card, making it difficult for enforcement officers to conclusively identify the person holding the card. Clearly, we need to make the present identification system more effective.

Sir, to deal with this problem, the Minister for Home Affairs had already amended the Immigration Act on 4th September this year to provide for the taking of fingerprints or finger impressions from foreign workers in Singapore. The amendment before the House today is to enable my Ministry, the Ministry of Manpower, to work together with the Ministry of Home Affairs to jointly implement a new and more secure identification card for foreign workers. This card will combine the current work permit card, the Immigration Disembarkation and Embarkation card together with the Visit pass into one single card which will also carry the fingerprint record of the foreign worker. The new card will incorporate more security features to reduce the likelihood of forgeries. These security features will also be more up-to-date and more effective. The inclusion of fingerprint records will allow our enforcement agencies to conclusively identify the holder of the work permit as being the person who is authorised to enter Singapore to work. It is also our intention to make it mandatory for all foreign workers to carry the new identification card with them at all times, so that if they are stopped for checking at the worksite, they would be able to produce the original work permit card rather than a photocopy of the work permit card.

The new identification card will be introduced from early next year, 1999. A phased approach will be adopted to capture the fingerprints or finger impressions of all foreign workers. For a start, all new foreign workers will be required to provide their finger impressions before they are issued with work permits to work in Singapore. Existing foreign workers who are already here, who are holding the old work permit cards, will be asked to provide their finger impressions when they come up for renewal.

However, we will pay particular attention to the recording of the finger impressions of foreign construction workers. This is because cases of illegal employment and work permit forgeries are most rampant in the construction sector. The construction sector is also the largest employer of foreign workers, particularly those from the non-traditional sources. Existing foreign construction workers will be notified to have their finger impressions taken within one year of implementation of the new identification system, and it will take us about two years to complete the exercise. But we will focus on the foreign construction workers first, so that we get them all fingerprinted within the first year.

The new identification card for foreign workers will be issued free-of-charge to the workers, in the first instance. Employers will be advised on the procedures to obtain these new cards in due course. However, if the foreign worker should lose the work permit card or damage it or deface it in some way and need a replacement card, a replacement fee of $20 will be charged. Foreign workers are currently given up to 14 days to report the loss of a work permit card to the Controller of Work Permits. With the introduction of the new identification card for foreign workers, we intend to shorten this reporting period from 14 days to 7 days. This will narrow the window period during which a foreign worker cannot be conclusively identified because he has not got the card and there is difficulty identifying him.

Sir, I will now go through the key clauses of this Bill. Clause 2 of the Bill amends section 3 of the Employment of Foreign Workers Act to allow the Minister to appoint Deputy Controllers of Work Permits and Assistant Controllers of Work Permits to assist the Controller to carry out the functions of the Controller under the Act. This is necessary to expedite the management of a very large number of foreign workers present in Singapore at any one time. Today, we have more than 450,000 foreign workers in Singapore. So we need to have more officers who are empowered to deal with all the management matters concerning foreign workers in Singapore.

Clause 3 amends section 14 to reduce the time within which a foreign worker must report the loss, destruction or defacement of a work permit from 14 days to 7 days.

Finally, Sir, clause 4 of the Bill amends section 29 of the Act to extend the powers of the Minister to make Regulations to provide for the taking and recording of finger impressions of persons who have applied for or who have been issued with a work permit and for the dissemination of such records to the Police and other law enforcement agencies. These regulations will also empower law enforcement agencies to demand finger impressions from persons holding the work permit cards for purpose of verification.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Ahmad Mohd Magad (Pasir Ris): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I rise in support of the proposed amendment in the Employment of Foreign Workers (Amendment) Bill aimed at improving the administration of the Act.

Sir, beyond what the Minister for Manpower has just described, the primary purpose of the amendment Bill is to give the power to effectively address the issue of fraud and forgeries of work permit cards. The proposed amendment to section 3 to also allow the Minister for Manpower to appoint additional manpower resources to assist the Controller is timely to ensure, among others, that we screen, filter and subsequently admit foreign workers with the necessary skills and calibre so as to contribute to the enhancement of Singapore's competitiveness.

Sir, in the light of the current financial crisis, much concern has been raised about the extent of jobs being assumed by foreign workers. With rising unemployment, this cry will inevitably get louder. The fact is, with the limited pool of trained workers, Singapore will still have to depend on foreign workers to meet the needs of increasingly more sophisticated industries. It is therefore imperative for the Ministry of Manpower to ensure not only for labour demand to be closely matched just in numbers, but, more importantly, to make available trained manpower with the requisite knowledge and skills demanded by today's industries.

The Minister for Manpower has recently announced in Parliament that the National Plan for Manpower is being drawn up by a Manpower 21 Committee comprising captains of industry, the Government and the trade unions. This multi-agency and tripartite approach to manpower planning and development is laudable to ensure that the needs of different industries are appropriately met. In situations where foreign workers are needed to fill the gap, it is imperative to make sure that only foreigners with the requisite skills and talents are brought in to fill appropriate job vacancies. This should be done only after exhaustively checking and ensuring that no suitable unemployed Singaporeans could take on the jobs. Such an approach will lend credibility and comfort to existing and new companies for they are assured of being able to continue to recruit workers with the appropriate skills and abilities to enable them to operate efficiently and increase their competitiveness.

Singaporean workers will also look up to their foreign counterparts to learn new skills from them rather than shunning them. In the current tough economic environment, new foreign workers admitted must be seen to add value to the companies recruiting them and ultimately contribute to Singapore's economic competitiveness. During these difficult times, it can be expected that Singaporean workers will be more vigilant than ever of the quality of foreign workers brought in by companies. They must be able to demonstrate their special abilities in order to earn the respect of their Singaporean counterparts and preferably should be in a position to impart their knowledge and skills to our workers.

In regard to the amendment of sections 14 and 29, I think these amendments are essential to highlight to foreign workers that the work permit issued to them is an important document which must be properly protected and also to deter them from toying with the idea of making a quick buck from selling their work permit card which undoubtedly is in demand by potential imposters in the light of the current economic crisis.

Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Zulkifli Bin Baharudin (Nominated Member): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, generally I support the Bill as it aims to provide for better administration of the Act. However, I have some reservations regarding the amendment to provide for the taking and recording of fingerprints of persons issued with work permit and for the records to be given to the Police. I must say that the Minister has been persuasive and convincing of the need and necessity for fingerprinting of work permit holders and that it is not made simply on the connotation or prejudice that work permit holders are more predisposed to crime and that they are harder to track down because of their sheer numbers.

However, I would like to bring up a point that there appears to be unequal treatment of employment pass holders and work permit holders. Yet one can argue that while we have not seen crimes committed by those with employment pass, some that we have seen have caused serious financial consequences. Arguably, we can also say they are more mobile and more difficult to track.

While it is understandable that based on the explanation given by the Minister that the employment pass holders have not caused the kind of problems that we are faced with, with regard to work permit holders, it is necessary that we demonstrate equality of treatment in the sense that I would think it is necessary at this point perhaps to even consider fingerprinting all employees who want to work in Singapore. After all, Singaporeans are also fingerprinted as far as their identity cards are concerned. I am simply raising this point because we must be careful of the problematic perception that they may cause and generate, that while the effect of such a regulation may be unequal for good reasons, the objective is certainly not discriminatory.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I first want to thank both Members for speaking in support of the amendment Bill although they have some reservations.

First, let me take the point raised by Mr Ahmad Magad. His main point is that foreign workers who are allowed into Singapore should be the ones who can do the job that is expected of them so that they can make a contribution to the company and the economy. Let me assure Mr Magad that this is the case and that foreign workers come to Singapore, either the skilled foreign workers who hold employment pass, or the semi-skilled workers who hold work permits, or even the unskilled foreign workers who hold a two-year work permit, because the employers require their services and they can help the company to enhance their competitive edge. It must be so because employers will not bring in these foreign workers just to stack up the manpower or the headcount in the company. They need these foreign workers because, in many instances, Singaporeans are not prepared to do some of the jobs which are available. As a result, the employers have no option but to turn to foreign workers.

Let me give Members the example in the construction sector. Today, we have a large number of foreign construction workers because many Singaporeans are not prepared to work in the construction sector, although there are many jobs going begging within the construction sector. Employers or contractors recruit many foreign workers. In the construction sector, my Ministry is introducing new regulations to ensure that the foreign workers who come in have some basic construction skills. We have started in August this year to require all recruitments of non-traditional source construction workers to have at least 20% of them tested in basic skills in their home country before we grant approval in Singapore. In other words, if you want to bring in 100 foreign workers from Bangladesh, for instance, at least 20 of them must have been skill tested in Bangladesh itself first and they have been found to have a certain level of basic construction skill before we grant approval in principle for you to bring in 100 of these workers. This 20% figure will gradually be adjusted upwards to 100%. Our initial target was to do this over a period of three years, but we are looking at whether we can shorten this period and to speed up the process to force the contractors to recruit more skilled workers. There is likelihood that we can shorten the timeframe.

The same can be said for many other sectors where, under the present circumstances, employers in fact have an opportunity to recruit more skilled workers because in the regional countries affected by the Asian crisis, there is massive unemployment. There is opportunity for them now to go out to look for the more skilled workers to come in to supplement the Singapore workforce in areas where we are lacking.

We will continue to refine and improve our foreign worker policy to ensure that employers who bring in foreign workers will need them and they have suitable skills qualification. This will take some time because we have a large pool of quite lowly skilled foreign workers. This has got to be turned over gradually and, in due course, we can replace them with more skilled foreign workers.

Sir, may I now turn to Mr Zulkifli who also supported the idea in the Bill to fingerprint the foreign workers. But he asked why is there this unequal treatment between employment pass holders and work permit holders. The reason, as the Member has mentioned, is that today the problems of abuses such as forgery of work permit card or work passes or working illegally exist mainly in the unskilled and semi-skilled level, in other words, work permit holder level. There are very few employment pass holders, who are in the professional, management and executive level, who end up in this kind of situation. Forgeries or infringements of the employment pass regulation in the employment pass sector are very few, because these are the better qualified and higher skilled people. We do not have so many cases of abuses or illegal workers or professionals coming into Singapore to work illegally.

The main problem is with the two-year work permit holders who are mostly unskilled workers, and the bulk of the problem is actually in the construction sector. We have lots of foreign workers in the marine, manufacturing and service sectors. We have very few problems with these people. Most of the problems that we are encountering such as illegal workers, wrongful deployment and abandoning workers on the street, all come from the construction sector.

Following this amendment, we will concentrate all our resources to ensure that fingerprinting of the construction workers takes priority. We will try to do it within one year because we must tackle this most serious problem first. If, at some point in the future, we find out that employment pass holders are up to no good and are also committing all kinds of breaches of the employment pass regulations, we can also bring them in. We only do things like fingerprinting if it is necessary. If there is no need to do it, why do we want to go through the trouble? Let me assure him that this is not a case of discrimination. This is a case of doing what is necessary. There is no need for us to overdo it.

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. - [Dr Lee Boon Yang].

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