There is a reason auxiliary police forces (APFs) are turning to Taiwan to fill their vacancies: They cannot find enough qualified Singaporeans and Malaysians.

The demand for auxiliary police officers (APOs) is projected to cross 600 over the next few years. But, since 2011, APFs such as Certis Cisco and Aetos have managed to grow their pool of Singaporean officers by only 250.

A Certis Cisco spokesman confirmed that it had been hard to find qualified Malaysians, too.

The response came in the wake of news reports that the outfit was looking to hire 120 Taiwanese nationals for its force here.

There are about 7,000 APOs here. They can be stationed at sensitive spots, such as immigration checkpoints, and can escort people in custody. They can also carry firearms and are allowed to arrest offenders.

“There is a shortage of the type of manpower needed for APFs… and APFs cannot get 600 APOs from Singapore, based on the last few years’ experience,” said a police spokesman.

“The majority of APOs in Singapore are Singaporeans. The Government requires that APOs at specific sensitive locations can only be Singaporeans. Foreign APOs are allowed to do other duties,” he added.

Hiring such officers from Taiwan will mark the first time they will be recruited from a foreign source other than Malaysia.

Certis Cisco said that recruitment interviews will start next month, and the company hopes to hire university graduates, aged 20 to 40, on two-year contracts.

Their deployment will depend on the needs of various sites and the suitability of the recruits, the spokesman said.

Certis Cisco will have to get the green light from the authorities before deploying the recruited APOs, said the spokesman, who declined to share further details.

Aetos has also started exploring Taiwan as a possible source for APOs, and launched a recruitment drive last month through advertisements in Taiwanese newspapers.

An Aetos spokesman said it intends to hire 120 APOs, who will help to ease the manpower crunch and complement Singaporean and Malaysian APOs.

Aetos also finds it hard to recruit Singaporeans and Malaysians, the spokesman said. “Retention of Singaporeans is also a challenge. Many Singaporeans are not keen to take on the role of an APO,” she said.

“This is attributed to the nature of the job – routine, tough working conditions: Having to endure vehicle fumes and harsh weather conditions, and performing shift duty.”

While both companies are looking to tap Taiwan for recruits, The Straits Times (ST) understands that the authorities still have to approve the source of their manpower.

In response to ST queries about Taiwan as a source for APOs, a Ministry of Manpower spokesman said Taiwan is an existing approved source for work-permit holders in the services sector, but APFs need to meet other requirements imposed by the regulatory agency, the Singapore Police Force.

tammei@sph.com.sg

tohyc@sph.com.sg

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This article was first published on Dec 29, 2016.
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Nine former workers of an Orchard Hotel club, who say they have not been paid since October, are turning to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) for an inquiry due to take place tomorrow.

The former part-time staff of electronic dance music club Nova said they were each owed wages of up to $2,000, but attempts to get their pay have mostly been unsuccessful.

“They kept making excuses, saying ‘next week’ or ‘next month’,” said Mr Glen Chia, 23, who worked there thrice a week, for $12 an hour, from August to last month.

He initially got his pay every two weeks, but Nova then stopped paying and he is owed close to $2,000, he said.

“We had no payslips. I requested but we didn’t get them.”

With changes to the Employment Act, companies have, since April, been required to issue itemised payslips to employees and provide key employment terms in writing, although MOM previously said it will “adopt a light-touch enforcement approach” for the first year.

Another part-timer, Mr Muhammad Rasul Iz’aan, 27, said more than 20 employees have stopped working since October, when the pay disputes began.

Tired of pushing for sales at the club with increasingly lean manpower, he quit in the middle of this month.

“I can’t even pay my bills, including my phone bills, which have been outstanding at about $400,” said Mr Muhammad Rasul, who has since found another part-time job.

Part-time cashier Farhana Mohamed Norr, 30, persevered and managed earlier this month to get her wages of more than $570 for October. But it was a test of patience.

“I called (the chief cashier) over 100 times, sent her WhatsApp messages and SMSes,” said Ms Farhana, who has three young children. She was so frustrated she even threatened to call the police.

“I need the pay. For us, even $10, $20 makes a difference,” said Ms Farhana, who is still owed $66.

Full-time workers were affected too. Bar captain Mohammad Ali, 42, said he is owed more than $2,000.

“I thought I was the only one… but I spoke to other staff,” said Mr Ali, who quit in November but returned this month, at a manager’s insistence.

“He (the manager) said they would be paying us in cash, but one time, they could not pay us because no sales were made,” said Mr Ali, who then decided to stop for good.

Mr Wyman Lee, a co-founder of Nova, told The Straits Times these were “just some late payments that will be resolved quickly”.

He revealed that management is still in discussion as to whether the club will continue next month, and declined further comment.

When ST visited the registered premises of Twodash29, the company that employed Nova staff, neighbouring tenants said it had been vacant for months.

They said they saw police visiting the Far East Shopping Centre office last week.

Part-time employees – who have a contract of service to work fewer than 35 hours a week – are covered by the Employment Act.

However, lawyer Yvonne Sweeney said: “The labour court will assist parties only if the company is still in operation.”

If it is closed for questionable reasons, it could become a criminal case and employees may have to turn to the police, or sue the company to seek recourse – which is likely to prove difficult for staff who lack funds, she said.

Mr Kurt Wee, president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, said a majority of SMEs have digitised payroll, which helps to protect both companies and employees from payment disputes.

byseow@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on December 29, 2016.
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A persistent shortage of engineering talent in Singapore has prompted the launch of a new scholarship to train more specialist engineers for the public sector.

Under the Public Service Commission Scholarship (Engineering), scholarship holders can take up courses such as naval architecture, financial systems engineering and geospatial technology.

These areas of knowledge will be relevant to one of three clusters they will be attached to: defence and security; infocomm technology (ICT) and smart systems; and infrastructure and environment.

After graduation, they will join the statutory boards or ministries under each cluster – for instance, the Defence Science and Technology Agency under the defence and security cluster, or GovTech under the ICT and smart systems cluster.

They will also have access to mentorship schemes as well as opportunities to be part of cross-agency project teams.

The PSC (Engineering) scholarship holders will be “challenged with technical demands that aim to sharpen their domain skills and hone them into experts of these fields”, said the PSC Secretariat, adding that it has not set a quota on the number of such scholarships to be awarded annually.

This year, more than 2,700 people applied to the PSC for a scholarship, a five-year high.

The announcement of the new scholarship comes after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted the shortage of engineering talent in July.

It was also announced in April that the monthly starting salary of engineers in the public service was to be raised to at least $3,800 from the middle of this year onwards.

This is to support Singapore’s drive to use technology more strategically in the next phase of its development. Those in the ICT sector can expect starting salaries of $4,000 and above a month.

The latest scholarship is open to university-bound students as well as undergraduates, who can apply mid-term, and is under one of the PSC’s three scholarship schemes.

These schemes include the Uniformed Service scheme, which offers the Singapore Armed Forces Scholarship among others, and the Public Administration scheme, which offers the PSC Scholarship.

The latter offers scholarship holders some flexibility in terms of which ministry they start their careers at, and their early years are spent building public governance skills.

But for those who apply for the PSC Scholarship (Engineering), which comes under the Professional Service scheme, “the key difference lies in the intended career paths of the scholarships”, the PSC Secretariat said. These people will be tied to their engineering clusters when they start their careers.

Mr Edwin Khew, president of The Institution of Engineers, Singapore, said the launch of the new scholarship “sends a strong signal” to all students and their parents of the growing demand for public- sector engineers and the importance of Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects to Singapore’s future.

“This will create a ripple effect and stimulate greater overall interest in engineering among the younger generation, and send more students into the private sector too,” he said.

Those interested in the PSC Scholarship (Engineering) may submit their applications at www.pscgateway.gov.sg

yuensin@sph.com.sg

CLUSTERS SCHOLARSHIP HOLDERS WILL BE ATTACHED TO

1 Defence and security

2 Infocomm technology and smart systems

3 Infrastructure and environment

This article was first published on Dec 29, 2016.
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Singapore’s second-largest taxi operator, Trans-Cab, is cutting rents in order to get more taxis to work with the company to reduce the cost of existing car rental companies.

The move comes from fierce competition between private leasing services Uber and Grab, which has led taxi drivers to abandon business or jump ship leasing cars and drive new players, observers say.

From January 1 onwards, Trans-Cab said it would reduce Toyota’s current daily rental rate from $ 90 now. The new fee will start at $ 59.50, down 34%. The Renault Latitude rate for three years or more will drop from $ 114 to $ 88.50, or 22%.

However, the revised rates apply only to the drivers who drive the cab alone, without the driver being relieved.

“As a result of competition from Uber and Grab, taxi drivers’ income is affected and they are harder to find relief drivers … By cutting rents, they can make money in a sense,” Chen Jun, general manager of the department, told the Straits Times yesterday. More.

In addition, according to the current plan, the taxi can get up to $ 405 a month reward, in order to obtain good performance and timely payment of rent. But this will be reduced to $ 140 with a lower rent plan.

Even with reduced incentives, Ms Tam said that as a result of reduced rents, the recurrent expenditure of drivers would be reduced by $ 500 to $ 650.

With the change, Trans-Cab also wants to hire more taxis. It has a 4,500 taxis, but about 500 – or 11% of people are idle.

Ang Hin Kee, executive counsel of the National Taxi Association, said the move welcomes Trans-Cab, noting that “lower rents will help reduce the burden on taxi drivers and reduce passenger traffic, especially at night.”

The report notes that passengers are moving from taxis to private taxis, which charge 50% of the midnight surcharge and do not impose such a levy.

Lee Der Horng, a transportation researcher at the National University of Singapore, said the rent reduction for Trans-Cab was “quite substantial”.

He thinks the company is doing it to “stop bleeding,” adding: “For the taxi industry, an unaudited taxi takes about seven rental cabs to cover the cost.

Dr. Lee said Trans-Cab’s move should put pressure on other taxi companies. ComfortDelGro, SMRT and Prime, however, no comment.

Premier Taxis says it constantly reviews and adjusts its tax rates. As to how many of its 1,953 taxis were not employed, the company said it was “in line with the competition.”

Together, the five companies operate more than 27,500 taxis. It is estimated that there are about 25,000 private car hire, leasing companies to provide the car as low as 60 US dollars.

53-year-old former child, Sarrudin Jailani, 53, drove a taxi for nine years and left the company two years ago to suspect he would accept the offer. In addition to dealing with competition, it is not easy to work without relief drivers, the security coordinator said.

“Even Uber cars can have a relief driver,” he said.

This article was first published on Dec 29, 2016.
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Two Vietnamese men were sentenced to six months’ jail for smuggling 12 endangered songbirds into Singapore in early December.

They were also sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for animal cruelty, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) and Immigration Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said in a joint statement on Thursday (Dec 29).

On Dec 9, ICA alerted AVA after detecting 12 live birds in two luggage bags that arrived on a flight from Vietnam to Singapore.

The birds were found in white plastic containers, covered by personal belongings in the luggage.

The men were subsequently detained and the bags were seized for investigation.

AVA identified the birds as Chinese Hwamei (Garrulax canorus), a protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

After being confined for about 12 hours without food and water, one of the birds died.

The remaining 11 were tested for avian influenza. A bird was euthanised after it tested positive for Influenza A virus (H3N8) while the rest are being monitored in quarantine for signs of exotic or zoonotic diseases.

As one of the few countries in the region that is free from bird flu, Singapore has strict import regulations.

AVA said that ornamental birds can only be imported from countries that are free from bird flu, and must undergo isolation for 21 days in the country of export. They must also be tested free from bird flu before import.

Upon arrival in Singapore, the birds are checked again for clinical signs of diseases, and samples are taken for bird flu, amongst other diseases.

Those found guilty of importing animals or birds with a permit from AVA will face a fine of $10,000 and/or a jail term of up to one year.

If convicted of importing CITES-protected species without a permit, offenders will face a fine of up to $50,000 per species and/or a jail term of up to two years.

In cases where the animals or birds were subjected to unnecessary suffering or pain, the offender will also be liable to a fine of up to $10,000 and/or a jail term of up to one year.

minlee@sph.com.sg

From Jan 1, 2017, the upper age limit for driving instructors will be raised from 70 to 75, the police said in a news release on Wednesday (Dec 28).

With the revision, those who are 70 years old and older can continue to conduct driving lessons until they turn 75.

This is on the condition that they pass their annual enhanced medical examination.

Senior Minister of State for National Development and Home Affairs Desmond Lee in a Facebook post on Wednesday said that the Ministry of Home Affairs had received feedback over the years from driving instructors, the Singapore Driving Instructors’ Association and some MPs that many instructors wanted to continue teaching beyond the current age limit of 70.

He shared a photo of a driving instructor, Mr Teo Boo Koon, who turns 70 next year and will benefit from the revision.

“He has taught many generations of drivers on our roads. With this change, we look forward to Mr Teo and his colleagues continuing to impart good driving skills, safe driving habits and road etiquette to new drivers,” said Mr Lee

This article was first published on December 29, 2016.
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