Singapore continues to encourage all parties, including the Myanmar government and the international community, to work together to foster a long term-solution to the Rohingya refugee crisis, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said yesterday.

This is so that the affected communities can rebuild their lives, he added.

Dr Balakrishnan was responding to parliamentary questions from Mr Louis Ng (Nee Soon GRC) and Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap (Aljunied GRC) about Singapore’s response to the plight of Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

The operation was launched after attacks on police posts in October last year.

Singapore’s position is that every government must ensure the safety and protection of all its people regardless of race or religion, said Dr Balakrishnan.

At the same time, it is also the right and responsibility of every state to secure its borders and maintain internal security, the minister added. He noted that issues of race, language and religion are sensitive and complex everywhere, including in Singapore.

And in the Rakhine state, inter-communal relations have deep historical roots and are highly complicated, he said.

“These issues are not going to be resolved easily or quickly in the short term. Patience, restraint and time will be required to build trust among the different communities, to foster racial harmony, and to restore peace and stability for the long term,” he added.

Last month, Singaporeans raised more than $350,000 for humanitarian support to affected communities in the Rakhine state, as well as those affected by the earthquake in Aceh.

“The funds for the Rakhine state will be channelled through Myanmar-based organisations to assist all affected communities, regardless of ethnicity or religion,” said Dr Balakrishnan.

But he stressed the need for a political solution. “Having any area in South-east Asia where there is an unresolved festering conflict, especially one that involves race, language or religion, poses an immediate and urgent threat (not just) to the country, but also to South-east Asia as a whole,” he said.

Dr Balakrishnan also updated MPs on the ASEAN foreign ministers’ informal meeting he attended in Myanmar on Dec 19 last year, during which Myanmar’s State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi briefed her counterparts on the Rakhine situation.

He said the meeting was open, frank and constructive, and was timely and useful in helping ASEAN to better understand Myanmar’s efforts in addressing the sensitive and complex situation.

The discussions focused on making sure that humanitarian aid would reach the communities in need, said Dr Balakrishnan.

He added that after the meeting, the Myanmar government indicated it would grant the necessary humanitarian access and continue to keep ASEAN informed of developments in the Rakhine state.

charyong@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Jan 10, 2017.
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There is a significant risk that the water level in Johor’s Linggiu Reservoir could fall to zero if 2017 is a dry year, said Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday.

The water level in Linggiu Reservoir stood at 27 per cent as of Jan 1, he said in a written reply.

Its water level has dropped drastically over the past few years, from 84 per cent at the start of 2015 to the lowest recorded level of 20 per cent in October last year.

Should the Linggiu Reservoir fail, there will be “many more occasions” when it will not be possible for national water agency PUB to draw its entitlement of 250 million gallons per day from the Johor River, he added.

Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade GRC) had asked whether the recent low water levels would affect the ability of both countries to meet their obligations under the water agreement.

Dr Balakrishnan said the water supply to Johor’s Semangar and Loji Air water treatment plants will also be affected, adding: “This will cause severe problems for both Malaysia and Singapore.”

The Government is watching the situation closely and has raised the matter with the Malaysian government, most recently at last month’s Leaders’ Retreat.

Singapore will cooperate with Malaysia to achieve a “mutually beneficial outcome”, he said.

Officials will discuss and identify possible solutions, he added.

“Our agencies have an excellent working relationship, and will continue to work closely together to sustain our water supply,” he said.

Read also: Water levels in Linggiu Reservoir hit new low

Use less water, PM Lee reminds as Johor reservoir dries up

Water level in Linggiu Reservoir drops to record low: Masagos

This article was first published on Jan 10, 2017.
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Polytechnic graduates from last year’s cohort have outperformed their seniors when it comes to pay and employment rate.

Fresh poly graduates had an employment rate of 90.6 per cent last year, up from 88.9 per cent in 2015.

Those who landed full-time jobs enjoyed a median pay of $2,180, up 3.8 per cent from $2,100 in 2015.

These were the findings of the latest annual graduate employment survey by the five polytechnics released yesterday.

However, more polytechnic graduates may be finding it harder to land full-time employment or prefer to work part-time while pursuing or waiting to start further studies.

Those with full-time jobs fell from 57.9 per cent for the class of 2015 to 55.8 per cent for those graduating last year, continuing a downward trend for at least three years in a row.

Meanwhile, those taking up part-time or temporary employment rose from 31 per cent in 2015 to 34.8 per cent last year.

A joint polytechnic spokesman said: “Employment rates are affected by various factors, and it is reasonable to expect some fluctuations from year to year. The increase in overall employment rate shows our graduates continue to be sought after by their respective industries.”

The survey polled 10,541 of the 14,004 fresh polytechnic graduates.

They were asked about their employment status as at Oct 1 last year – about six months after their final exams.

Also surveyed were 5,106 of the 9,212 graduates from 2013 who completed their full-time national service (NS) between April 1, 2015 and March 31 last year.

About 95 per cent of them had found employment – 3.9 per cent higher than in 2015.

Of these, 70.2 per cent had full-time jobs while 25.2 per cent were on part-time, temporary or freelance ones.

The survey also found that fresh graduates and post-NS graduates from the Health Sciences category had the highest median gross monthly pay in their respective cohorts – $2,400 and $2,800 respectively.

Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) graduate Lee Hong Xuan, 20, received a job offer from architecture firm Woha several months before graduating last May.

Ms Lee, who had interned at Woha during her third year in poly, is now a project coordinator at the firm with a monthly pay of $2,700.

She plans to study architecture at the National University of Singapore in about two years.

On her decision to get some industry experience first, she said: “In design, it’s not just about textbooks.”

Fellow NYP alumnus Seah Guang Yong, 27, who studied Multimedia and Infocomm Technology, is now an IT administrator at Commerzbank.

He got the job a month before graduation.

Mr Seah, who draws a monthly salary within the range of $3,000 and $3,300, recalls the time spent scouring through the classified ads and JobStreet.com.

“I sent a lot of resumes,” he said.

tohwenli@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Jan 10, 2017.
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Two more radicalised foreign domestic workers were sent home between Dec 18 and yesterday.

In all, seven foreign maids have been radicalised and repatriated in the past two years, said Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam in a written reply to a parliamentary question yesterday.

He was responding to a question from Dr Fatimah Lateef (Marine Parade GRC), who asked for an update on the issue, after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) reported on Dec 18 that five maids had been sent back under such circumstances in the last two years.

All seven maids were radicalised through the Internet, said Mr Shanmugam.

“They did not have plans to carry out acts of violence in Singapore at the time they were investigated,” he said. “However, their interactions with others showed that they had bought into radical ideologies and were on a dangerous path.”

He added that their presence here “posed a security concern” and they were repatriated to their home countries.

No further information on the cases was given.

“Our security agencies will continue to monitor the situation closely and will investigate individuals in Singapore who are suspected of being radicalised, both foreign and local,” said Mr Shanmugam.

On Dec 18, the MHA revealed that it had investigated 70 foreign workers who were radicalised while working here in the past two years.

Five of them were maids.

This came after Indonesia’s anti-terror police rounded up four women on suspicion of terrorism, one of them Dian Yulia Novi, 27, who had worked in Singapore between 2008 and 2009 as a domestic worker.

dansonc@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Jan 10, 2017.
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Singapore will match the RM20 (S$6.40) road charge that Malaysia has imposed on foreign vehicles since Nov 1 last year, said Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan in Parliament yesterday.

He also said drivers of Singapore-registered vehicles entering Malaysia via Woodlands and Tuas paid an estimated RM13.9 million in road charges between Nov 1 and Dec 20.

He was replying to Mr Ang Wei Neng (Jurong GRC), who asked for an estimate of the road charges paid by drivers of Singapore-registered vehicles, as well as whether Singapore plans to impose similar charges in the near future.

Details of the matching charge will be announced soon, said Mr Khaw, adding that Singapore has a “longstanding policy of matching any levy, tolls or fees” imposed on vehicles crossing into Malaysia.

“This is to ensure that Malaysia takes into consideration our response whenever they raise their tolls or introduce a new levy,” he said.

Mr Ang also asked whether the number of vehicles entering Malaysia had gone down significantly since the charge came into effect.

Mr Khaw said there has been no noticeable drop, noting that the levying of the charges coincided with the year-end holiday period.

He added that most of the vehicles crossing at the checkpoints were motorcycles, to which the road charges did not apply.

Read also: Malaysia to collect RM20 road charge from foreign vehicles entering Johor from Nov 1

Now is not the time for a toll hike, Malaysians say

This article was first published on Jan 10, 2017.
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Former Hougang MP Yaw Shin Leong, who left Singapore abruptly some five years ago after he was expelled by the Workers’ Party (WP), is now working in a private education college in Myanmar and goes by the name Amos Rao.

His sacking, for not coming clean on alleged extramartial affairs, triggered a by-election in the WP’s Hougang stronghold and sent voters there to the polls again just a year after the May 2011 General Election.

Mr Yaw, 40, is now a senior vice-president of Shenton Co, a private education provider in Myanmar, and oversees overall operations, business strategy and recruitment.

He is also general manager of three subsidiaries there, including Temasek International College, which provides degrees and diplomas in business and hospitality and has 11 lecturers.

He is listed in social media and the college’s website as Amos Rao.

Rao is the hanyu pinyin spelling of his Chinese surname.

When contacted in Yangon by telephone yesterday, Mr Yaw declined to comment on his activities since leaving Singapore.

He said that he is a private citizen and needed his “private space”.

Mr Yaw has been involved in the education sector for several years, including when he was in Singapore.

He founded and ran an enrichment programme development firm named Eduhearts Consultancy from 2005 to 2012, and was also a lecturer at a private college.

Mr Yaw reportedly left Singapore with his wife on Feb 15, 2012, a day after his expulsion from the WP and just hours before the news was made public.

Their whereabouts in the months thereafter were not known.

But his Facebook account shows he has been in Yangon since at least May last year, and that he was in Zhengzhou, China, for about four years before that.

He spends 10 months in Myanmar and the rest of the year in Singapore, according to his profile on the LinkedIn networking site.

Once a rising star in the WP, Mr Yaw was chosen to defend party chief Low Thia Khiang’s long-time Hougang seat after Mr Low moved to contest in Aljunied GRC in the 2011 General Election.

Mr Yaw won the seat with 64.8 per cent of the vote, a better result than Mr Low secured in the 2006 election.

But allegations of extramarital affairs surfaced online in January 2012.

He repeatedly refused to comment on them.

But a month later, the WP sacked him for failing to be accountable to the party and his constituents.

The ensuing May 2012 by-election, which the WP won with a reduced vote share, was the first to be held here in nearly 20 years.

Mr Yaw was the first of three MPs in a four-year span to lose their seats over personal scandals.

Former Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer resigned in December 2012 after admitting to an affair, while Bukit Batok MP David Ong stepped down in March last year, also over an alleged affair.

The social media accounts for Amos Rao only hint at his previous involvement in politics.

They state that he was a leader and activist, organising grassroots activities in “non-profit organisations” from 1999 to 2012, the same period he was active in opposition politics.

ziliang@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Jan 10, 2017.
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