OFFICIAL SECRETS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, the Official Secrets Act (OSA) guards against disclosure of official documents and information as this can be detrimental to national and public interest. It is in line with this objective that I am presenting this Bill today.

Sir, increasingly, many governmental functions have been devolved to statutory bodies. This ensures that the public sector continues to remain nimble and responsive to challenges of the future. This also allows statutory bodies to have greater flexibility to compete in the recruitment of professional talent by tapping external expertise from either local or overseas organisations. With the greater flexibility, statutory bodies will better harness their professional capabilities and concentrate on developing their core competencies, whilst the Ministries focus on the core functions of policy planning and resource allocation. For example, MINDEF is better able to concentrate on the core Ministry functions of policy planning and resource allocation, while the statutory body, Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) focuses on providing the technological and engineering support to the Singapore Armed Forces. Similarly, MTI is able to better focus on policy and planning in maintaining Singapore's competitiveness, while the statutory bodies, EDB and TDB, concentrate on increasing foreign direct investments and trade.

Sir, this devolution of functions results in officers in these statutory bodies having access to official information. This is inevitable as the officers require this information to discharge their functions properly and effectively. The OSA currently only covers Ministries. To ensure that the provisions of the OSA continue to cover these officers, it is necessary to extend the scope of the Act to include selective statutory bodies. Prior to conversion into a statutory body, such information would have been handled by the officers as Ministry officials and therefore covered under the OSA. Hence, what this Bill essentially does is to restore the position to what it was before the formation of the statutory bodies. It also extends coverage to new matters that the designated statutory bodies may cover. There is thus no change to the substantive scope of the OSA's provisions. Currently, some of these selected statutory bodies are covered by the statutory bodies and Government companies' Protection of Secrecy Act (PSA) but the scope of PSA is narrower than the OSA. This is not satisfactory in so far as official information vital to national security and national interest is concerned. Hence, these selected statutory bodies are now placed under the OSA.

The Bill proposes to amend the OSA by introducing a Schedule of Organisations comprising selected statutory bodies and DSO National Laboratories to be protected under the OSA. In this way, the provisions relating to wrongful communication of information, falsification of reports, forgery, personation and possession of false documents will apply to these organisations. The President can amend this Schedule from time to time by notification in the Gazette.

Sir, MHA has consulted all the Ministries to identify the statutory bodies under their charge that handle official information vital to national security or national interest. For example, the Monetary Authority of Singapore handles information which can impact economic security and contains market sensitivities. CISCO has access to official information relating to national safety and security such as the protection of key installations. Similarly, the other listed organisations deal with official information pertaining to their domain of work. DSO, whilst not a statutory body, has been included because it engages in sensitive defence research and development programmes to provide cutting edge technologies and capabilities to the SAF. It therefore requires a high degree of access to critical and sensitive information relating to SAF's developments and plans.

Sir, with these amendments, we aim to ensure that official information continues to be properly protected and managed. This can only be for Singapore's good.

Sir, I beg to move.

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. - [Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee].

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