Seng Han Thong sorry for racist remark - 22Dec2011

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• published: 22 Dec 2011
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SINGAPORE: Member of Parliament (MP) Seng Han Thong has apologised over his remarks made on Channel NewsAsia's programme, Blog TV.SG, which was telecast on Monday. Mr Seng's comments on the show suggested SMRT staff failed to communicate with commuters during the two massive train breakdowns last week, because of their ethnicity. Mr Seng said he was simply repeating what he heard from an SMRT spokesperson in a radio interview. The deputy chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport has said he made a "regrettable mistake". Mr Seng said on Blog TV.SG that "I noticed that the PR mentioned that some of the staff, because they are Malays, they are Indians, they can't converse in English well enough". That remark got Mr Seng -- one of the five guests on a special edition of BlogTV which discussed the recent spate of MRT breakdowns -- in hot soup. Mr Seng's comments incurred the wrath of Singaporeans, who vented their anger on his Facebook page. It has also drawn a rebuke from Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob, who said the remarks were "inappropriate and unfair". "English is a very important language that is used very widely, in all job application, in all jobs, and whether that would then lead to employers thinking that, 'look, perhaps we should re-think about employing minorities because they may not be able to speak English so well'," Madam Halimah said. "That may result in communication problems, so I think that is a genuine concern. "This could then affect job opportunities, particularly in the current situation when the labour market is softening, and people are really quite concerned about their jobs and that's the reason why I think we need to correct this. In his online apology, Mr Seng said he made a regrettable mistake in his language, which may be misconstrued as him saying that people speak bad English because of their ethnicity. He said Singaporeans of all ethnicities and backgrounds speak varying standards of English, and that his Chinese-educated background gives him a special empathy for the non-English-speaking sections of the society. The point he was trying to make was that different standards of linguistic ability should not prevent people from communicating, especially in times of emergency. When contacted, Mr Seng declined to comment further on the issue, saying his online apology is sufficient. SMRT told Channel NewsAsia that Mr Seng may have misunderstood comments made by its Senior Vice President, Communications & Services, Goh Chee Kong in a radio interview last Saturday. During the interview, Mr Goh had said SMRT staff who are of different races find it difficult to make announcements in English. But he did not highlight any particular race. SMRT said it is training its staff so that they can better communicate wit