SINGAPORE, June 7 — Singaporeans have the right to expect a thorough review and accounting of the nation’s response to the Covid-19 crisis, Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh said on Friday, in the party’s first major statement on the government’s response to the pandemic.

Speaking in Parliament during a debate on the Fortitude Budget, Pritam said that the party has so far chosen not to publicly criticise the Government on its handling of the unprecedented crisis in ways that would undermine the national effort.

But WP’s position as a constructive opposition requires it to communicate the feelings of Singaporeans on the ground in parliament, he added.

For starters, he said, there is the perception that the Government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis has not been clear or decisive.

Advertisement

“For example, there is a broadly accepted view that the public should have been told, early and clearly, and not through illegal recordings behind closed doors, for example, that universal masking would prove to be a challenge in view of supply constraints, requiring the government to prioritise our healthcare and other essential workers,” he said.

In February, a recording of Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing speaking to businessmen in a private dialogue session was leaked on social media. In it, he was heard speaking candidly about why masks were not the solution to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Pritam added: “Straight talk, especially on Singapore's limitations and shortcomings in managing the crisis, did not always define official government communication on Covid-19.”

Advertisement

Confusing rules, unclear communication

He added that the public has also been confused with many “piecemeal announcements, U-turns and positions that did not gel intuitively,” such as limiting visits to parents and grandparents, even as safe distancing rules on public transport have already been lifted.

He noted, too, that other Members of Parliament (MPs) had raised similar confusions among businesses, such as those in the construction sector, about safe distancing rules.

“For some Singaporean businesses, at times it felt as if no one in government was taking ownership of how Covid-19 directives would be perceived, interpreted and understood on the ground,” he said.

Pritam noted that on top of these domestic directives, the Singapore Government also had to make “higher-order trade-offs and decisions” despite “numerous unknowns” associated with the spread of the virus.

For example, while other countries requisitioned mask supply lines, he said it would appear that Singapore resisted doing so, probably with an eye on the future so that international companies will always see Singapore as a reliable place to do business.

“This must have been a tough call,” he said.

“But rather than getting the public to speculate about these decision-making trade-offs, such as whether the possible shortage of reagents to ramp up Covid-19 testing far more quickly was a problem, the public was largely left to infer positions that ought to have been unequivocally made by the government.”

More space for contrarian views

Pritam said youths, non-governmental organisations not linked to government-linked companies and trade unions, as well as the people sector should be given more space to voice their contrarian views.

“With many corporates and big businesses already perceived to be over-represented in our political ecology via the grassroots or though their associations in private-public national level committees, the government needs to consider how it can become a better arbiter between different views,” he said.

Pritam argued that Singaporeans should count themselves fortunate to have fellow citizens who are “loving critics.”

Pritam continued: “If binary, black-and-white perspectives are the shape of how we as a society deal with differences after Covid-19, Singapore will become an ordinary society, no different from any around the world.”

Moving forward, he said the Government should look at opening more avenues like the Parliament for citizen engagement, greater data sharing, empowering think tanks and enlarging the mainstream media to give alternative perspectives more voice.

Other WP suggestions

Non-Constituency MPs Leon Perera and Dennis Tan Lip Fong, both WP members, in their own debate speeches on Friday gave suggestions on how the Government should have exited the circuit breaker on June 1.

Perera noted that the Government’s approach divides companies into those that are essential and non-essential.

An alternative approach could be considered to leave the choice to business owners on how they would like to resume business while still sticking to safe distancing rules, among other precautions, he said.

“We need to find the right balance between protecting livelihoods and protecting lives,” he said, as he pointed out that a lack of safe distancing has been anecdotally observed at a number of supermarket outlets in shopping malls under current rules.

Tan, meanwhile, said the government could have been less prescriptive in getting businesses to continue with telecommuting, including current limitations in the number of workers allowed at the workplace.

“Let businesses take ownership in managing telecommuting and the extent of telecommuting as appropriate for each individual business and their bottomline… Let businesses focus on recovery with more breathing space,” he said. — TODAY