SINGAPORE: After Dr Janil Puthucheary sent an invitation to Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh and three other opposition MPs to a Mar 20 event in Parliament to thank COVID-19 frontliners, Mr Singh, in turn, invited Ms Sylvia Lim (WP-Aljunied GRC), Assoc Prof Jamus Lim (Wp- Sengkang GRC) and Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Ms Hazel Poa (Progress Singapore Party).
“There is a nation that will always be grateful and proud of you. I am sure your families and loved ones are too,” wrote the Leader of the Opposition in a Facebook post on Wednesday (Mar 22).
He wrote that he spoke to “a broad range of individuals” during the event, and doing so “brought back memories of the last 3 years.”
“Those I spoke to included: NSmen medics who spent their in-camp training looking after foreign workers, transport company representatives whose drivers brought travellers from the airport to hotels, a school vice-principal who returned to school at 4:30 am to react to a COVID cluster (it was the first school to report a cluster), ambulance staff, doctors, quarantine facility operators, NGO leaders, and uniformed personnel,” Mr Singh wrote.
He added that it is “quite telling how these individuals (and the many more were not in Parliament) just got on with their responsibilities in an understated, matter-of-fact way,” with others, he noted, volunteering for challenging assignments.
Dr Puthucheary is the Minister of State for Communications and Information as well as Minister of State for Health. He has also been the Party Whip of the ruling People’s Action Party since 2019.
Earlier this week, the White Paper on Singapore’s Response to COVID-19, which was published on Mar 8, was discussed in Parliament.
“The White Paper reviews our whole-of-nation response to the pandemic and sets out key lessons for Singapore, so we can be better prepared for the next pandemic,” reads a press release from the Prime Minister’s Office.
On Monday (Mar 21), Mr Singh called for the full report to be made public.
/TISG
Netizens agree with Pritam Singh’s call for full report on Covid-19 to be made public