Andrew Loh
Manpower Ministry says it “does not reveal specific details of cases to the public.”
On 20 September 2009, The Online Citizen reported the case of Bangladeshi worker, Mr Asad Madber Yeaz Uddin Madber. (See here.) He had been asked by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to remain in Singapore to help with investigations into his employer, Skilled Engineering, for illegally deploying its workers.
Mr Asad ended up remaining in Singapore for four years – and having to risk deportation and jail time by supporting himself with working illegally. The Special Pass which he was issued stated categorically that he was not permitted to work while under the S Pass.
The Online Citizen had emailed the MOM to ask for details of the case on 16 September. We asked the following three questions of the MOM:
- What is MOM’s purpose in retaining him in Singapore for such a long time?
- Has MOM provided him any help while he is being retained – such as housing, food, transport costs?
- Has MOM settled with Mr Asad’s employer over the non-payment of his salary in 2005? If so, may I know what the outcome was?
One week later, 22 September, MOM replied to us and acknowledged receipt of the email. Still one more week passed and on 1 October the MOM sent us another email responding to our queries about Mr Asad’s case. In that email, the MOM said:
“Mr Asad Madber Yeaz Uddin Madber was required to remain in Singapore as a prosecution witness following MOM’s investigations into his illegal employment. He was eligible to seek employment under the Ministry’s Temporary Job Scheme until the conclusion of the case. However, there were no prospective jobs or employers for him.”
This confirms what Mr Asad himself told us when we met and spoke to him. The MOM email then said:
“A foreign worker who remains in Singapore as a prosecution witness to assist in investigations could ask to be sent home if he no longer wishes to remain here. Mr Asad only put forth his request recently. The Ministry considered his request and assisted in his repatriation on 22 September 2009.”
In short, the MOM lays the blame entirely on Mr Asad for not asking to be sent home and MOM avoided answering the last two questions we asked. The Online Citizen then followed up with another email on the same day (1 Oct), this time with five questions for the MOM, as follows:
- Has MOM provided Mr Asad any help while he was retained – such as housing, food, transport costs? Was he given any financial or monetary help? If yes, how much did MOM provide him in total for the 4 years that Mr Asad was here?
- Has MOM settled with Mr Asad’s employer over the non-payment of his salary in 2005? If so, may I know what the outcome was?
- When Mr Asad was asked by MOM to remain in S’pore to help with investigations, did MOM tell him that he could ask to be sent home anytime during the course of the investigation period?
- Finally, when did the case of “illegal deployment” – which Mr Asad was involved in helping with – began and has it been settled? Or is the case still on-going or pending?
- According to Mr Asad, he was never once asked to testify or was asked to attend court hearings in the 4 years from 2005 to 2009. Is this true?
One week later, 6 Oct, the MOM replied as follows:
“We refer to your email of 1 Oct 09.
We regret that we are unable to provide you with further information regarding Mr Asad, as the Ministry does not reveal specific details of cases to the public.”
We suspect that the MOM had completely forgotten about Mr Asad – for four years – and only came to know about his peculiar situation when we enquired about it. The MOM then promptly arranged for Mr Asad to be sent home – on 22 September, one week after our initial email to the MOM on 16 September.
As for whether Mr Asad retrieved the salary that was owed to him, we do not know and the MOM is not telling.
The case of Mr Asad is probably one of utter incompetence on the part of MOM officers.
For how can one worker be told to remain in S’pore and have his Special Pass regularly renewed each week for four years, without him ever being called to testify in court? And neither was he told or updated on what was happening in the investigation in the case he was supposed to be helping with.
The number of foreign workers who faced salary disputes with their employers rose to more than 3,000 in 2008. This is doubled that of 2007.
The MOM’s excuse that the “Ministry does not reveal specific details of cases to the public” shows how easily incompetence is brushed aside in the ministry. The ones who suffer the consequences of such incompetence are workers such as Mr Asad, who has effectively lost four years of his life here.
But to the MOM, as long as Mr Asad is sent home to his country, the case is “resolved”, it seems.
Perhaps Mr Asad can be added to the set of statistics which Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong regurgitated in Parliament earlier this year, that, “On average, 85 per cent of cases in the last six months were successfully conciliated within three weeks.”
Sadly, the minister does not realize that statistics only tell one side of the story.
Mr Asad’s case remains a mystery, for no one knows if the salary owed to him was paid, or whether the MOM had provided him any assistance for the four years he was asked to remain in Singapore. And most importantly, did the MOM forget about Mr Asad altogether, for those four years?
Only the Ministry of Manpower knows the answer – but it is not telling.
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This is outrageous! This is absolute arrogance on the part of MOM. The mentality of our highly paid civil servants is such; the well being of a fellow human being is nothing to them at all. If that is the case, just don’t open our door so wide as to allow so many foreign workers into Singapore. What is more appalling is that there is no help and nothing done for them from their own embassy.
In the eyes of MOM, it is a case of you-die-your-problem for these foreigners!
Minister Gan oh minister gan,
where art thou heart?
I think all the high salary has made the self-serving fat cats lazy and complacent.
World Class administration? My S.
Why conveniently not telling? Is there something to hide?
I think by refusing to tell, is itself is very telling.
MOM likes to keep MUM?
In simple lingo: Who gives a F*&((, they’re only human -it’s the statistics that matter, particularly if we think we need to call an election!
You know what?
If YOU were in the govt, and YOU were the MOM or YOU were drawing million dollar salaries, chances are YOU will do the same if not worse.
This is what the PAP leaders will tell you. Many people, including myself and many other well-meaning people like YOURSELF, may end up corrupted like the PAP people in their high posts.
So…another foreign worker (not foreign talent, mind you) was sent home, so what?
Got loss?
No.
But then again, I do get your drift about things in Singapore. So how? Study harder and get to become a PAP Minister!
Go ahead, and keep returning this same bunch of snort back to government. One day you will find that how they treat Mr Asad will be how they treat you, the citizen. Oh wait, I forgot, for some of us are already second class citizens in our homeland….
You call this a ’1st class’ country??? Incompetent government and MOM agency that can’t even solved a simple issue. Vote them out !
The followings are the most incompetent and under performed ministries and ministers to-date : Tranport – Raymond Lim, Development – B T Mah, Manpower – K Y Gan and NTUC, worker union – S S Lim. I hope they will get the kick this coming election.
There is a segment in one of the chinese radio stations this morning talking about whether our Ministers and government leaders are being emulated in foreign country. The DJ’s are talking about something like our ministers have set high standards and their policies have been studied in other country. Something rather strange happened. I had goose pimples on realising what they are talking about and immediately switch station, I felt so ashamed for these ministers.
Going by the way how we treated not only our own citizens but also people like Madber, one cannot feel proud that they are our leaders.
Just checking, did TOC send a link to this article to MOM? It will be nice to inform them about how their non-answers are now public knowledge.
First, indeed there’s injustice done to the above-mentioned foreign worker.
Second, besides informing the public, what else has been done by forum-writers to improve the situation, or provide a solution to the worker.
Third, road taxes in the form of ERP is fair. The whole idea is, if you can afford to buy a car, why complain about the road tax.
The point that is baffling though is the accountability for all the taxes collected, besides ensuring that we have a strong reserve against any foreign manipulation?
“The case of Mr Asad is probably one of utter incompetence on the part of MOM officers.”
It is more than incompetence. It is utter irresponsibility and shows a total lack of humanity. Perhaps a separate body should be set up to attend to the welfare of workers, both foreign and local since embassies and unions don’t seem to be able to assist in such matters.
Now the approved standard template reply
“People do want to know. There’s curiosity. It is a matter of public interest. But that is not sufficient reason to disclose information.”
If the top dogs could get away with it even during questioning in Parliament,
why not their little puppies
no use wa lah guys and girls.
1. pkms incident.
2. SDP guys found not indicted at first and then prosecutors appealed again
3. RP episode
4. Acupuntured ex-WP sunshade extravaganza
There is only one way left.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more similar cases or this nature everywhere in Singapore. MOM’s lack-a-daisical attitude also encourage more foreign workers(especially Bangladeshis and Chinese) to take this route to prolong their stay in Singapore. Most of them can be found in town council estates where the attitude of management agents is no better than MOM. Bangladeshi workers of today are much smarter. Moonlighting in town council estates could earn them more salaries as town councils allow them to work at long odd hours at night and in the wee hours of the morning to avoid detection from the “occasional” raids conducted by MOM.
The government will continue to issue permits; otherwise, the impact on revenue in the form of “foreign workers levy” (in billions of dollars a year), which they have been collecting for years now would be greatly felt. The levies paid by employers are indirectly paid by the workers through “kickbacks” to the employers. The amount of kickbacks ranges from S$5000 to S$10,000 per worker. A renewal fee of about S$5000/worker is also levied by employers each time a renewal is made. This makes employment of foreign workers “dirt” cheap. Moreover, the kickbacks are paid upfront which serves as business capital for the employers. Perhaps this explains why town council contractors resort to use of “phantom” local workers to inflate their quota for more foreign workers.
MOM should haul up all employers, in particular, those contracted by town councils and those in the marine industries to get to the root of the real issue. Foreign workers should also be interviewed as well.
Legal Eagle,
MOM was informed of this report.
TOC have a constantly updated article on the rising costs of living. I think the plight of the individual foreign workers should also be catalogued in a similar fashion.
Maybe, one day fifty years into the future, when the Singapore Story says that foreign workers fifty years ago – responsible for transforming Singapore into a forest of skyscrapers – were treated with huge respect and dignity and well-supported by the government, we will have an alternative story to tell.
May I point out the elephant in the room here – i don’t think this is so much an issue of incompetence so much as deliberate and calculated neglect on the MoM’s part. This is a bold statement to make, but bear with me. I think famie is the closest to hitting the nail on the head as far as the comments go. The problem, really, rests in what he calls “cheap labor” in the construction industry. In the various contractor’s eagerness to lower costs they have turned to extremely immoral recruitment techniques, which I can only compare to slavery.
Consider this: “Blangas”, (really deorgitory slang) are imported, en-masse, and are bonded into a debt which they are unable to repay within any reasonable time. This is a swindle of such grand proportions that it can only be hidden in plain sight. “Blangas” are given wages far beneath anything reasonable or promised, are forced to live in inhumane living conditions, and to work extremely ridiculous hours, having no choice but to stay due to the debts incurred, not being able to afford the airfare home.
Contrast this to the construction industry in any developed nation (“the west”), who’s workforce consists of skilled laborers who get paid a extremely reasonable wage – $25-35/h (or SG $50-70) in contrast to the $1-2/h they are paid here. This is in fact even lower than even the minimum wage for laborers, skilled or unskilled, in India. (about $3/h). Also note that neither their food nor hosing is paid for, and the bulk of their savings go towards rent in extremely inhumane living conditions – bunks which would make the seediest barracks here look hospitable. And the working conditions … well, 12 hours a day in the mind-numbing heat and humidity of the Singaporean climate. Try trading that for your day job, whatever it may be.
I hope it’s obvious by now what the MoM has more than good reason to turn a blind eye to the construction industry – morality, as always, is sacrificed on the altar of progress. Obviously, no local would put up with conditions like this. And if we are to even meet a quarter of the working standards of the rest of the civilized world, NONE of these new and expensive developments you see, including the new “integrated casino”, would ever leave the drawing board.
The dimension of the problem is far worse than described though. What’s truly disturbing’s that this kind of slavery has become the status-quo here. The average middle-class Singaporean, blissfully unaware of state of affairs, reaffirms his own ego with rationalizations such as “Well, they should be thankful for a job here! They’re getting paid more than in India and are living in a first world nation! Everybody wins!”. Think for a moment about what you are saying. And realize that this is as much our fault as it is the hands of the contractors.
Strange that our government calls this “catching up” with the world, because I can only see this as regression. We have only progressed in the most, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the MOST superficial sense. Consider this then, the next time you next walk out of your beautiful HDB flats into the clean streets beneath, take a moment to look beneath the glittering facade of our city, peek beneath the veil and consider, for a moment, the sweat and blood spilt to make this possible.
I have included, at the risk of spam, my email in this posting. If you have any questions or comments which you wish to inform me of privately please do so.
Also, to Jackson: It is true, the blangas deserve way more respect than they get. But really it has to stop now. I would like to propose two solutions
– giving forigen workers all the resources they need to protest knowing that they know they have the support of the country when they unionize. This is more tricky as they are usually temporary workers and may not have the motivation to do so.
- the other thing that can be done is a collective effort to inform the “western media” of this situation, because if there’s one thing i know the government’s afraid of, it’s “losing face”.
This will unfortunately mean the collapse of several huge developments and locals will have to ultimately pay the price for it. But it’s a price worth paying, I think.
i think gabe has said it best here.
the foreign workers have little to absolutely no idea of their rights.
i reckon the incident several months ago of the plight of the unpaid chinese workers was a one off in their getting plight out to the public.
If Singapore’s own native citizens (with some economic/political value still left to milk) are already mistreated, how else do you think imported “slaves” (no economic/political value) will be handled?
Making Singapore lose global face so far is still the only way to get some possible public relations reaction, but over time, it will just harden to become like the Myanmar junta and N.Korea, insensitive to any media. That’s how dictatorships work. Just see the starting signs already of how the PAP government sues and bans publications/media/persons that comment negatively about the city state and the clowns that run it.
Singaporeans, well, those that admire the government blindly at least, needs a major spiritual and personal cleansing and WAKE UP call. Either way, karmically or economically, treating your fellow mankind anything less than you would treat yourself, is a guaranteed one way ticket to start a wave of backlash.
And to those who prefers something more scientific to move their ass to become more humane.
Here’s Einstein:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction ;)
If Mr Asad Madber had been a different foreign worker, such as an American professor, or a Dutch company director, or a German doctor, I imagine MOM would apologise profusely and compensate for whatever lost. However TOC would not even has a case in the first place.
So fellow Sporeans, it is not a case of incompetency nor iresponsibility, it is worse than that, much much worse. They are playing games with real lives. Don’t believe me? Why does SG score best for efficiency in civil service when the survey was done to EXPATRIATES? Does people like Asad Madber get to participate in such a survey?
The whole system is so rotten, maggots are already appearing everywhere.
I cannot agree with Agent008′s and Knowledge Is Power points more. If anyone is still reading this, I wonder if there’s a way to prove this, perhaps by doing a proper peer reviewed study which points the obvious flaws out.
A simple plot of income vs time-to-resolution should speak for itself. This would be a way to deal a huge and fatal blow to the government. Is anyone interested in helping out in conducting such a study? Email me!
Gabe, your intentions are good BUT the ONLY way to handle these heartless greedy leeches is not to prove anything anymore. We are all past that phase. Truth will not matter nor compel them to retract from their evil ways.
The only way to deal with the whole rotting structure is ELIMINATION. We already witnessed all their crimes against our own citizens. Now we just wait for the election and VOTE for the opposition.
I, for one, seriously love to put their fear theory to the test. Since MM claims voting for the opposition will “ruin” Singapore. OK, show me. Let me SEE for myself. Let’s do this for science. Let’s all really vote the opposition in, vitro and vivo, and see how these damn white pap smear germs squirm?
Nothing venture nothing gained. We do it all for science. Nothing personal. We do it for mankind!
PS: Look at it this way, even say if we made a mistake, we still can slowly slowly fine tune our experiments and find better oppositions along the way. We just need to make the first move to open the floodgates to alternative talent.
No rush to revert back to old system. These MIW leeches are not going anywhere. They are all desperate. They are germs. They will always be everywhere. They are just waiting BUT we must be VIGILANT!