“Singapore government is preparing our workforce to deal with the terrorist threat, creating protected workplaces with response plans ready to kick in should an incident occur, partnering the community to maintain vigilance and improve our readiness to respond,” said Deputy Prime Minister (DyPM) of Singapore Teo Chee Hean today while addressing the National Security Conference.
He said, “Singapore security agencies are working hard to detect, prevent and deal with potential attacks.”
Teo, who is also the Coordinating Minister for National Security, said, “One major effort is the SGSecure movement which aims to sensitise, train and mobilise the community. But the Government wants to do more to prepare businesses to deal with a potential terror threat.”
He also informed that Ministry of Manpower (MOM) along with Home Team and other partners have developed ‘SGSecure Guide for Workplaces’ to lay out what companies should do in the event of a terror attack.
For ensuring security to the businesses, companies have to get ‘SGSecure engaged’ which means getting companies to appoint and register a SGSecure representative with the Ministry of Manpower to serve as a key point of contact. The ministry aims to have 30,000 SGSecure-engaged companies with a registered representative by 2020.
The deputy prime minister, said, “Businesses must also develop effective contingency plans to secure their workplaces, and that the bizSAFE workplace health and safety programme has been enhanced to help them do so.”
MOM aims to have 27,000 companies meet the enhanced bizSAFE requirements by 2020. Under this enhanced framework, business leaders will learn how to identify risks and develop risk management plans for their companies.
MOM said it had also identified five priority sectors – food and beverage, retail, entertainment, hotels and transport – which tend to have a high concentration of people and a higher likelihood of being targeted.
While laying emphasis on religious harmony, Teo said, “The business community can make significant contributions to build racial and religious harmony, social cohesion and community trust.”
He added, “This will help reduce the likelihood of social tensions, strife and security threats. This is also important for resilience for companies, communities and our nation in order to recover from an attack.”
He concluded, “Singapore has introduced important institutions, laws and regulations to help prevent conflict, and keep all communities together. Such efforts include the Group Representative Constituency system to assure minority communities that they will always have representation in Parliament.”
