Speech by Minister Desmond Lee at the Ministry of National Development (MND)’s National Day Observance Ceremony 2020

Aug 7, 2020

A very good morning to colleagues.

First, I would like to wish all of you and your families a very happy 55th National Day. I know the last few months have been tough on all of you. The workload has been very heavy. I have seen your emails at all hours of the day and night. You have been working very, very hard.

Especially in the early weeks of the pandemic, we have all been operating in the fog of war, with very limited information, and adjusting to twists and turns along the way. You have been working around the clock, against the clock, to implement a whole array of measures to fight this pandemic, such as establishing Government Quarantine Facilities (GQFs), Stay-Home-Notice (SHN) facilities, and establishing all sorts of new acronyms to reflect new-fangled tools that we had to bring into play in order to keep Singaporeans safe.

I know many of you have been coordinating with multiple agencies in double-quick time, developing new policies, new programmes, and participating in safe-distancing education as well as enforcement all around the island. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I visited some of our MND Family colleagues at different locations as they were doing their work, to understand the challenges they were facing, and to thank them for their very hard work.

Many of you have also been working extremely hard to reach out and support Singaporeans who are crying out for help during this crisis. You have also been doing many other things as part of MND’s COVID-19 response, and some of which, is without precedent. I also know that it has been incredibly challenging for many of you personally, and for your families as well. Working from home, as I think many of you are doing now, is a forced new experiment, very semi-surreal. But for many of us, our home might not necessarily be the most conducive place to work, and the line between work and family has, for many of us, been blurred.

During the circuit breaker and the early days of our reopening, schools were closed. We had to help our children at home with home-based learning, even as you were struggling with all the other responsibilities that you have at work, and in family. And as childcare centres and senior activity centres were closed for safety reasons during the circuit breaker, I know many of you have also had to bear the full brunt of caregiving responsibilities without the usual support. In fact, in some of the Skype calls, as we were having meetings, at all hours of the day, I could sometimes hear your children calling for your help in the background, while you were trying to focus on the meeting. And for some of you, because of the circuit breaker, you have not been able to visit your elderly parents, and you worried deeply for them. 

So on behalf of colleagues, senior management at MND, as well as colleagues in the Multi-Ministry Taskforce, I would like to take this occasion this morning at our National Day Observance Ceremony to first say that we deeply appreciate all of you, for your very hard work, and your many personal sacrifices that you have made, often done quietly and without complaint in this fight against the pandemic. I would also like to thank your family as well, for the sacrifice they have had to make, in order to support you in this important work that you do. 

Now we still have a very long road ahead of us – we have been able to achieve some semblance of normalcy in our daily lives even as the rest of the world is in utter turmoil as the papers each day numbingly reveal.

But where we are now may well be the proverbial eye of the storm, and the worst of the pandemic may yet be ahead of us. We will have to steel ourselves, reinvigorate and reenergise ourselves, and be ready to do battle on multiple fronts – on the health, social, and economic fronts. We cannot let our guard down at any point in time, because the lives of Singaporeans and their livelihoods depends on our vigilance and our energy.

Talking about energy, I know it has been more than six months since this pandemic started. It has been tiring and draining on all of you. But the way we respond to this incredible crisis may well determine the course of our lives, and the future of our children and our grandchildren. 

Our immediate priority right here at MND is to focus on our COVID-19 operations. We have to keep going, keep our eye on the data and trends, keep listening to people to gather their feedback, and adjust along the way. We have to help the construction sector to re-start, and our colleagues in the sector to survive. We have to assist Singaporeans whose BTO homes have been delayed due to the pandemic. 

At the same time, we have to provide assistance to those who have been badly affected by the crisis. Their ability to continue to pay for the mortgage on their homes, to be able to continue working, has been thrown into doubt. Even as we focus very squarely on the crisis, we have to cast our eyes on the horizon, as a small city-state, we have to keep looking ahead at the bends in the road. We have to anticipate what the new normal will be like, what kinds of adjustments and changes we need to make – some minor or major, some temporary, some structural. 

We also have to see what strategic opportunities we can seize for Singapore. It is not just about mitigating risks and fighting a defensive fight, but also about looking out for opportunities that have emerged, and how we can help Singaporeans to seize them. 

At the same time, we have our longer-term agenda to push to make Singapore even more green, liveable, and sustainable for ourselves, our children, and our future generations. But the COVID-19 pandemic has cast a spotlight on various aspects of our economy, society, social compact, and the way we live. 

We will have to take a good, deep hard look at many of the things that we have always done, and many of the plans we have originally put in place. In the months ahead, we will work closely with you to realise what this means for our plans and programmes, and what we must do – how we can be more green, liveable and sustainable. Of course, that green agenda must start with ourselves right here in MND HQ, and in our wider MND Family. We will be discussing with senior management and colleagues on how we can be green by example.

There is a new team of office holders here in MND who have joined us. In fact, they are all here in this Zoom NDOC with us. We have Minister Indranee, SMS Sim Ann, MOS Faishal Ibrahim and MOS Tan Kiat How. We will work very closely with all of you. We look forward to your ideas, advice, imaginative solutions, and also sharing with us your challenges. We also look forward to your partnership to steer Singapore through this most difficult of times. I am confident that we will succeed if we work very closely together with single-minded determination. 

On this 55th National Day, this most unusual National Day, borne out of circumstance, my colleagues and I, senior management and all of us here at MND wish you and your families good health.

Happy National Day. Majulah Singapura.