PSA Singapore breaks ground on new $647.5 million Supply Chain Hub at Tuas Port, scheduled to be ready by 2027

PSA's new supply chain hub aims to establish Singapore as preferred port of call

By Kok Yufeng, Transport Correspondent, The Straits Times, 18 Oct 2024

Port operator PSA broke ground on a new $647.5 million Tuas warehousing facility equipped with advanced robotics and automation systems on Oct 18, as part of its efforts to sharpen Tuas Port’s competitive edge.

Construction of the new facility comes as Singapore looks set to handle a record-breaking container volume of 40 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2024.

Spanning more than 185,000 sq m and located within the limits of Singapore’s new mega port, the new PSA supply chain hub is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2027.

Speaking at an event to officially mark the start of construction work, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said the hub will improve the Republic’s ability to handle cargo shipments.

PM Wong, who is also Finance Minister, said the new hub will have facilities to handle dangerous goods, as well as goods that require cold storage. This will allow it to process higher-value cargo, such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals that require special handling.

“Currently, businesses that want such services have to truck their cargo out of the port, incurring duties, and then truck it back to the port for shipping again. This takes time, and it adds up to additional costs,” he said.

With the new supply chain hub, companies will be able to tap these specialised cargo handling services under one roof within the same free trade zone as Tuas Port, he noted. Custom duties are not charged on goods that are stored in such free trade zones.

“We want businesses to use Tuas Port as a convenient and efficient one-stop shop, not only for their physical goods but also as a control tower to manage their inventory and global supply chain flows,” PM Wong added.

Construction of the facility comes as competition gets increasingly sharp in the shipping industry.

PM Wong said other major ports like Shanghai and Rotterdam were upgrading their infrastructure to serve larger vessels and attract “mega” shipping alliances.

He added that many ports around the world are also offering services beyond just moving containers. These include cold storage facilities and regional distribution centres.

Furthermore, unlike ports in countries with large production and consumption bases, Singapore has no hinterland of its own, he added.

In this environment, Singapore cannot afford to be complacent and has to sharpen its competitive edge to remain the “preferred port of call”, PM Wong said.

“We must continually invest not just in the Port of Singapore but also in value-added capabilities so that we can keep on adapting and staying abreast of changing trends.”

These trends include the growing scale of shipping, with ships today built to carry up to 25,000 containers, compared with 500 to 800 containers in the 1950s, he said.

Shipping alliances, which allow major container shipping lines to share vessels, port calls and trade routes, are also growing bigger, he said.

What this means is that ports will need to have the infrastructure to handle large ships and large numbers of containers efficiently. Ports will also need to add value to shipping alliances to attract the large fleets they operate.

“The major alliances today hold over 80 per cent of the world’s container shipping capacity. Changes in their service networks could significantly affect traffic to hubs like Singapore,” PM Wong added.

Singapore’s port terminals handled a record 39 million TEUs in 2023 and hope to cross 40 million TEUs in 2024, he said. Vessel arrivals and bunker volumes have also risen in the first nine months of the year.

The completion of PSA’s new supply chain hub in Tuas in 2027 will coincide with the closure of Keppel Distripark, which specialises in the consolidation and distribution of cargo.

PM Wong said the new hub will expand the capacity currently available at Keppel Distripark, allowing Singapore to attract more trade.

He added that there will also be “many more developments” in the coming years to ensure Tuas Port can continue to serve the largest container vessels.

Terror attack foiled: 17-year-old self-radicalised Singaporean arrested weeks before planned attack in Tampines

Youth shared radical materials with his social media followers

By Samuel Devaraj, The Straits Times, 18 Oct 2024

A 17-year-old Singaporean supporter of terror group ISIS was arrested just weeks before he could carry out his plan to kill non-Muslims in Tampines.

And this was a very close shave, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam on Oct 18.

The youth, who was from a mainstream school, had planned to carry out his attack during the September school holidays and practised stabbing motions with a pair of scissors.

He was arrested in August under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

He had traced his steps from his home to an open area in Tampines Street 81, near supermarkets, provision shops and coffee shops, a children’s art school and a tuition centre, where he had planned to stab non-Muslim men.

The teenager chose this HDB heartland area near Tampines West Community Club as it was crowded and near his home.In a press statement on Oct 18, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said he was issued a two-year order of detention in September.

The teen had also planned to travel to Syria to fight, said ISD. He had got in touch with an online foreign contact for travel advice and researched flight routes.

The youth saw his plan to fight in Syria as meaningful, as he would be able to fight and die with fellow ISIS fighters to establish an Islamic state in Syria, ISD added.

He knew it would be difficult to travel to Syria without arousing the suspicions of his family, ISD said. So, he decided to strike here, a plan that he felt would be easier to carry out and fulfil his aspirations to be a martyr.

Speaking to the media at the site of the planned attack, Mr Shanmugam said thousands of people walk through the area daily, and it would have been more crowded during the school holidays.

The minister said: “He knew that he would be intercepted by the agencies, the police. He had made up his mind to die in the course of the attack. He wanted to become a martyr.

“I would say this was a very close shave. It is very fortunate that ISD arrested him in time.”

Mr Shanmugam said that compared with past cases, this was one of the plans that came closest to being carried out.

He said the youth was detained because of the extent of radicalisation and how close he was to carrying out his plans.

He said: “It is very easy to attack people here. People are defenceless. They are not coming here expecting to be attacked.

“People go around in Singapore feeling safe, so you could easily have gone on a rampage and killed a lot of people around here.

“Look at the kind of people who are around. Kids are playing, senior citizens are resting. They are easy targets for such an attacker.”

ISD said the youth came across the teachings of foreign radical preachers in August 2023 while searching for religious knowledge online.

He embraced segregationist religious beliefs, including the view that Muslims should not extend festive greetings to non-Muslims.

ISD said that following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, online extremist materials by ISIS increased, and he became self-radicalised.

ISD added that he joined online groups that provided updates on ISIS activities, and believed in the use of armed violence to establish an Islamic caliphate.

By January, he aspired to die as a martyr while fighting for the group.

In May, he took a bai’ah or pledge of allegiance to ISIS in his room.

The teen was inspired by ISIS propaganda, which glorified suicide knife attacks, ISD said.

Besides the pair of scissors, he considered using a kitchen knife in his home to stab people in the neck to kill or wound them.

Said ISD: “He felt a sense of pride knowing that his planned attack, if successfully executed, would be the first terrorist attack in Singapore in recent decades.”

The teen had crafted a declaration of armed jihad against non-Muslims, which he planned to release before his attack, to inspire other Muslims to engage in armed violence.

Restoration of East-West MRT Line services a combined effort by foreign workers, contractors and volunteers

East-West Line disruption from 25 to 30 Sep 2024

By Esther Loi, The Straits Times, 6 Oct 2024

It was a race against time for Indian national Dhandapani Vignesh and his rail welding crew to finish joining new rail segments in about three days to fix a section of damaged tracks between Jurong and Clementi stations.

Originally contracted to work on depot renewal projects under the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the 36-year-old construction manager, together with 20 other foreign workers from his team, were alerted at 7pm on Sept 26 that they were being roped in to repair the damaged tracks.

The day before, a train had caused extensive track and trackside damage along a stretch of the East-West Line (EWL), halting rail services between Jurong East and Buona Vista.

The team immediately got down to work, putting in nine- to 10-hour shifts from Sept 27 to 30 to finish welding – or connecting – the new rail segments to existing ones along the westbound track so that trains could run smoothly again. The new rails replaced the ones damaged by the faulty train.

The disruption, which lasted six days till Sept 30 and affected about 2.6 million passengers, was one of the most severe rail disruptions in the 37-year history of Singapore’s MRT system. Train services resumed on Oct 1.

Despite the pressure of the task at hand, Mr Vignesh mused that he literally “did not feel the heat much” as rail welding, which involves heating rail segments placed between ceramic moulds to join them, was done in the shade in tents.

The main challenge, he added, was having only a limited working timeframe – from around 2.30pm to midnight daily. Welding was not possible at other times of the day since the rails would expand in the daytime heat and eat into the 30mm gaps required to insert welding materials.

Mr Vignesh and his team were also heartened by the steady stream of cold drinking water almost every hour and fast-food meals provided by LTA, rail operator SMRT and even members of the public.

They were among the more than 800 workers responsible for getting the EWL train services up and running again.

Former transport minister S. Iswaran’s 12-month prison term underlines intrinsic value of public trust

The integrity of our public institutions is paramount and serves as the lynchpin for our faith in governance.

By Eugene K B Tan, Published The Straits Times, 5 Oct 2024

Integrity underpins good governance. It’s a non-negotiable. When public trust erodes, the country risks descending into dysfunction, as accountability falters, and public institutions lose legitimacy.

For many in Singapore – and around the world – the high-profile case of former minister S Iswaran was seen as an anomaly here, and yet at the same time a litmus test of the integrity of our system and governance.

Last week, Iswaran pleaded guilty to four Penal Code Section 165 charges, which make it an offence for a public servant to ask for or accept gifts as a public servant from someone with whom he has an official business relationship, and one charge for the obstruction of justice. Thirty other charges under Section 165 were taken into consideration in sentencing.

On Oct 3, Justice Vincent Hoong sentenced Iswaran to 12 months’ jail – twice the six to seven months the public prosecutor had argued for and about six times what the defence had put forward.

In his view, anything else would be a “manifestly inadequate sentence”.

The message was clear.

The paramount importance of trust and confidence in public institutions was writ large and robustly reiterated in the High Court’s 94-page ruling.

Perceptions and public institutions

At one level, the sentence underscores the court’s strong stance against any offence that undermines trust and confidence in public institutions.

Even perceptions of influence peddling by gift givers or abuse of office are highly detrimental as they have an insidious effect on public trust and confidence.

Perceptions often operate as reality. In other words, the harm caused can be significant even from perceptions. This is a reasonably compelling position to take.

The public interest in the integrity and trustworthiness of public institutions, which is necessarily hard-earned, is undermined and easily dissipated by perceptions that individuals could enjoy the patronage of public servants, or that public servants are susceptible to influence by pecuniary benefits. As such, perceptions of unethical conduct or unlawful actions must be vigorously avoided.

Is this too high an expectation and standard of public servants and public institutions?

Not at all. The public sector is such a vital part of our lives and its impact significant in all that we do. Should it fall into disrepute, governance can only become awry.

Notably, the judge recognised that distrust in the public sector can arise not just from outright corruption but also where public institutions become the target of influence peddling, the lack of impartiality in decision-making, and being prone to dispensing patronage.

Justice Hoong put it well: “The swift denunciation of such offences is necessary to deter the acquisition or cultivation of the patronage, loyalty or goodwill of public servants by valuables for the perceived benefits of persons with dealings connected to the official capacities of public servants”.

Zero tolerance

But this was also a case that demonstrated the various public institutions and the rule of law at its best even though the matter was hugely embarrassing for the Government and ruling party.

The judge found that Iswaran had abused his high office.

The mitigating factors he put forth, including his public service and contributions to Singapore, the voluntary disgorgement of benefits received, and a guilty plea at the start of the trial, did not sway the sentencing in his favour.

The judge made it clear that persons in high office with the “associated power and status” should generally be regarded as having acted with more culpability in abusing their position to obtain valuable gifts.

The investigation, prosecution and outcome of this case align with the longstanding position of zero tolerance of corruption.

Any doubt that there has been a wavering of the commitment on incorruptibility across the whole of government or that preferential treatment was accorded to Iswaran should now be banished.