KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MINISTER FOR DEFENCE DR NG ENG HEN FOR THE MINDEF VOLUNTEERS’ DINNER ON 3 OCTOBER 2024

Senior Ministers of State,

Parliamentary Colleagues,

Permanent Secretaries, 

Service Chiefs,  

Volunteers,

Distinguished Guests, 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

INTRODUCTION

Let me just say how happy we are to host this volunteers’ dinner – myself, Mr Heng Chee How and Mr Zaqy Mohamad, as well as Minister of State for Education and Manpower Ms Gan Siow Huang. We do this every year to thank you for your great service and this is a small way to say “thank you”, as well as to meet with each of you. I am looking forward to the interactions. The past five years have of course been quite difficult for many countries, and indeed globally.

AN INCREASINGLY VOLATILE SECURITY ENVIRONMENT

You remember the COVID-19 pandemic – the supply chain disruptions, inflation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rising rivalry between the US and China. These were major stresses to countries and international systems. Many of you would know Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank. She likened the current difficulties with similarities that the world experienced in 1920s, which resulted then to the collapse of global trade and the Great Depression. In her words, “We have faced the worst pandemic since the 1920s, the worst conflict in Europe since the 1940s and the worst energy shock since the 1970s.”  

In all this turbulence, there is a bright spark for us here, and these are the positive comments when we have visiting foreign dignitaries or guests. They say very nice things to us, that they want to learn from Singapore because to them, as they look at us, we have done well despite regional and global difficulties. When I hear these positive remarks, I tell them in turn that we take nothing for granted, and that as a small country, things can go very wrong. But quietly and among ourselves, we can be gratified that our system has done well and withstood great shocks.

The question is why have we done well? We accept that we have done well. One of the key ingredients of that strong social compact is trust. Trust among each other, and between Government and the people or groups. Now it is easy for me to say trust, but if I ask you to define what trust is – how you measure it, how you quantify it, how you establish it, how do people feel about it – it becomes less easy. Trust is intangible and yet can result in very real outcomes.

Let me push this further. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic – and this was a global event, researchers went to great lengths to try and discover – the scientific word is of course, elucidate – why some countries did better than others. It was a global event and there were commonalities across many countries, rich and poor, and they asked a simple research question – why did some countries do better than others during the COVID-19 pandemic? This was serious research, published in peer review journals. They did not fudge the data – they looked at what were the reported incidents, they looked squarely at mortality from all causes – that is harder to hide, or fudge. They looked at various factors. For those of you who do research, you would know they did a multivariate analysis – socio-economic groups, strength of government, strength of institutions. You would think that if you asked yourself that question – why do some countries do better than others in a pandemic – in 2023? You would say the richer countries would do better, or that those with more established healthcare systems would do better and so on and so forth.  Their conclusion after extensive research was that the quintessential quality, the number one quality which determined how well a country did, was trust – regardless of socio-economic factors and how developed their healthcare institutions were. Of course those play a part, but the predominant factor was trust. Trust between people and those in authority was the key deciding factor. When trusted Governments issued quarantine or civil restrictions, or vaccination programmes, those societies with more trust complied and did well. Conversely, in societies with greater distrust, programmes broke down, infections soared, and deaths rose. So just think for a moment, in this particular incident, trust – an intangible factor led to real life and death consequences. 

CONTRIBUTIONS OF MINDEF VOLUNTEERS

Why am I telling you about trust in this MINDEF Volunteers’ Dinner? Trust cannot be built overnight and can be lost quickly. Like all relationships, it needs constant effort and tending. I start with that because all of you here helped us to build the trust. 

Members of the Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (ACCORD), played significant roles as our advocates in various sectors – for example, the CEO of the Singapore Business Federation Mr Kok Ping Soon in helping us to deepen engagement with employers, Managing Director of Sidra Capital Ms Trina Liang in her outreach to family members and the broader community, or President of the National University of Singapore Professor Tan Eng Chye in bringing universities together – as well as giving us constructive criticism. ACCORD builds trust and commitment to National Service (NS) and defence.  

This year marks 40 years of Total Defence, and with ACCORD’s help, more than 800 organisations participated in the inaugural Exercise SG Ready. This was an exercise in which we simulated various activities which would disrupt civilian lives. We gave a forewarning, we even switched off the water for some blocks – but of course, we warned them. Then we stationed PUB trucks to give them the water supply – that was as far we would go, but we did that. This was because people came on board – the Singapore Business Federation and the Singapore National Employers Federation, they are both members of the ACCORD Employer and Business (E&B) Council, took part in the exercise by simulating water and power disruptions. I think it was one of the shopping malls which actually switched off and got the escalators to stop working for a while. They launched, as well, in-house phishing exercises to strengthen cybersecurity awareness.

Members of the MINDEF Strategic Communications Expert Panel (SCEP), chaired by Mr Nicholas Fang, gave us feedback to these exercise scenarios, a video to sharpen the message and to move Singaporeans to action. Tonight, I also want to make special mention of our medical boards, who have worked quietly and tirelessly to ensure that the SAF can deploy young enlistees properly and safely. Senior specialists like Professor Philip Choo, Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board (MAB), and former Group Chief Executive Officer of the National Healthcare Group, who help SAF in the areas of clinical governance and benchmarking of clinical care. Members from the Psychiatry Specialist Advisory Board (PSAB), like Dr Christopher Cheok who is the Chief and Senior Consultant in the Department of Forensic Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health, help us to strengthen our mental health system and screen pre-enlistees for psychiatric conditions. Many of you know that among our young, psychological conditions have seen a significant rise. That is happening in schools, and we see them when they enlist, and if we did not have the expertise to deal with it, people might lose faith in NS.

Without your expertise and commitment, our NS system would have weakened if enlistees are wrongly deployed. You have helped us build trust and confidence of Singaporeans in our servicemen’s ability to defend them and to respond adequately when called upon.

I also want to make mention of the External Review Panel on SAF Safety (ERPSS). I want to thank its Chairman Mr Yam Ah Mee and members for helping us to ensure the SAF trains safely. 

CONCLUSION

All in all, we have 387 precious volunteers that serve in 39 boards. That is not a lot, but you do a lot and your impact is great. I wish I could mention each of your valuable contributions. Each of you helps us, the SAF and Singapore, maintain trust. Because of your efforts, they trust that MINDEF, the SAF, and the Government will do a good job in building a strong defence, they trust that their sons will be well taken care of and can train safely, they trust that their feedback and efforts as employers and the community are appreciated. Trust is the golden coin in the realm of progressive and stable societies. Thank you for all your contributions and building that trust.  I wish all of you an enjoyable dinner and evening ahead. I look forward to interacting with you individually. Thank you. Majulah Singapura.

MINDEF Recognises Contributions of Volunteers to Defence