Eight of the 10 hottest years ever recorded in Singapore all occurred this century, with 2016 topping the chart, the Meteorological Services Singapore (MSS) said in a statement yesterday.

This is consistent with ongoing global warming, and the El Nino weather event from 2015 to the first half of 2016, MSS added.

The average temperature of 28.4 deg C last year surpassed the three-way tie in 2015, 1998 and 1997, of 28.3 deg C. January, April and August in 2016 also broke records for being the hottest of their respective months.

Read also: 2016 was the hottest year ever in S’pore and globally

Meanwhile, rainfall patterns last year were “less remarkable” than the temperature. The only standout was March, the driest March since Singapore started recording rainfall in 1869.

The report also mentioned that last year’s low water levels at Johor’s Linggiu Reservoir, which supplies around half of Singapore’s water demand, could have been a result of the warm and dry conditions in the regions around Singapore. Water levels there hit a historic low of 20 per cent last October. This rose to more than 30 per cent in January.

Experts said 2017 is likely to be cooler than 2016, as El Nino is not likely to play a part this year, but warmer than average.

ngjunsen@sph.com.sg

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

The price of infant milk powder continues to climb, with parents saying they have little choice but to fork out for the formula.

After more than doubling between 2004 and 2014, the average price of a 900g tin has risen a further 10 per cent in the past two years, according to figures from the Singapore Department of Statistics.

Over the past decade, the average price of such a tin has gone from $25.42 to $56.06, a rise of about 120 per cent.

This outstrips the price increases of other dairy products and household staples over the same 10-year period.

The cost of fresh milk, for instance, went up 6.8 per cent to $2.81, while the price of eggs climbed 28 per cent to $2.17.

A baby can go through three to four 900g tins a month, which means families can easily spend around $150 monthly on just milk for a child.

Mr Melvin Wu, 34, who runs local parenting portal Babyment, told The Straits Times that he was shocked to discover this month that he was paying about 25 per cent more for Similac’s Stage 3 milk powder for his two infants, compared with four years ago when he bought it for his eldest child, now five.

He went on to check prices of other popular brands Friso, Nan H.A., S26, Mamil and Enfamil and found similar price rises, he said.

Milk powder companies Abbott, Nestle, Mead Johnson and FrieslandCampina, when asked about the price jumps, said it was down to research and development to improve formulas, and rising overhead costs.

Dumex did not respond to queries.

To help offset rising prices, all five community development councils and the NTUC FairPrice Foundation banded together last month to fund a $1.5 million milk scheme, giving 7,500 low-income families vouchers to buy milk powder.

Supermarket chains FairPrice, Giant and Sheng Siong said that they stock a range of milk formula, including cheaper options.

While the Health Promotion Board encourages breastfeeding exclusively for at least six months, this is not an option for some mothers.

As her five-month-old son Louis was losing weight on breast milk, medical doctor Gail Cross began to supplement his diet with formula.

A $70-a-tin brand recommended by her paediatrician did not go down well with Louis, said Dr Cross, 36.

The family settled on a Bellamy’s Organic brand. Going through three to four tins a month ran to more than $200.

To save costs, she asked relatives visiting from Australia, where the powder is cheaper, to bring some over.

Administrative assistant Tanya Ong, 36, said she plans to start buying milk powder from Malaysia for her infant son as products there are cheaper.

CIMB Private Banking economist Song Seng Wun said that while there are many factors that go into pricing, milk formula is seen as a necessity.

He added: “But because it is a product that you buy only for a limited period of time, parents just bear with it.”

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This article was first published on Mar 24, 2017.
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At least six Bangladeshi workers may have to go home as soon as next week, if they are not able to find a new employer.

Their previous employers, HBB Engineering and C-Plus Engineering, owed them between four and eight months’ pay.

In total, 31 workers from the two companies have been affected.

While the workers have received a portion of their pay, some have been out of work since January after their work permits were cancelled by their employers.

Though the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) informed them that they had two weeks to approach any employment agency for help, the workers have not been able to find alternative employment.

DEBT

A spokesman for MOM said the six workers will have the remainder of their salaries paid through insurers later when they either find a new employer or when they return home.

But the workers will be going home to a mountain of debts they’d hoped to pay off with a steady job in Singapore.

Mr Prodhan Abdur Razzak, 36, was an excavator operator with HBB Engineering. He came to Singapore last May and stopped receiving his salary in July. He said his employer cancelled his work permit in January.

He has received $1,773 – half of the pay he is owed by the company – but has a $4,700 debt to pay off back home, consisting of a bank loan he took to pay agent fees to travel to Singapore and medical bills incurred by his family.

The Straits Times reported on March 10 that the companies are being investigated by MOM.

Mr Razzak, who comes from the Chandpur district in Bangladesh, told The New Paper: “I asked my boss for some money to pay the medical bills, but he always said he had no money.

“I even cried but, in the end, I had to borrow from a friend to pay the bills.”

Mr Razzak added that his S Pass expires on March 30.

His is one of 4,500 salary-related claims involving foreign workers that MOM has received every year for the last three years. MOM said more than 95 per cent of claims are resolved every year.

Non-profit organisation Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) told TNP it handled 376 salary cases last year and the 2017 figures already look set to surpass this number.

Mr A.B.M. Rafiqul Islam, the owner of both HBB Engineering and C-Plus Engineering, was not contactable for comment yesterday.

Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC) chairman Yeo Guat Kwang told TNP that, while the centre is able to actively source for employment for the workers through its network of industry associations, the “success rate is generally not high” and called for a “multi-stakeholder, collaborative approach” to the issue.

“MWC plans to partner the industry associations, as well as the MOM, in exploring and considering additional measures that the stakeholders may take to improve our system to better assist and facilitate migrant workers to secure alternative employment,” said Mr Yeo.

This article was first published on Mar 24, 2017.
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