NEA assists PAP MP to reach out in affected area but not WP

Sun Xueling, MP for Punggol-Pasir Ris GRC, visited some of her residents at Punggol Way yesterday (1 Sep) evening, soon after after two isolated Zika cases were found there. The MP is seven-months pregnant and said: “It’s important for them to see me walking around. I want them to know that life can go on as normal with Zika, so long as you take precautions.”

Besides volunteers from her political party, People’s Association’s (PA) grassroots at Punggol West and her own Town Council staff, the MP was also assisted in her visit to the affected area by staff of the National Environment Agency (NEA).

Workers’ Party (WP) leaders too mobilised their non-PA affiliated grassroots to spread Zika awareness in an infection cluster in their constituency’s Kaki Bukit Division. But unlike the People’s Action Party MP Ms Sun, WP did not have NEA’s staff to assist them in their outreach.

The WP team said: “We didn’t have enough NEA brochures, so we made our own version to give out if we run out of the NEA version.”