PAP MP mocked for using phone calculator in Parliament as he is grilled by WP

SINGAPORE: Senior Parliamentary Secretary for National Development Syed Harun Alhabsyi is being mocked online for his behaviour during a debate with members of the Workers’ Party (WP) in Parliament this week.

Dr Syed Harun is a first-term Member of Parliament (MP) who served as a Nominated MP weeks prior to the 2025 general election. He resigned from his non-partisan NMP role, contested the election under the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) ticket, and coasted into Parliament as part of veteran minister K Shanmugam’s team.

On Thursday (May 7), Dr Syed Harun appeared flustered as he responded to questions in the House about the controversial Statutes (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill. The Senior Parliamentary Secretary led the debate on the Bill but was later “rescued” by another minister who commented that Dr Syed Harun was “struggling” to find certain records.

The controversial legislation that the House was debating formally regularises certain fees and charges that had already been collected by four MND statutory boards over a period of years.

The affected agencies were the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), Housing and Development Board (HDB), National Parks Board (NParks) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

According to MND, the fees had previously been treated as administrative charges tied to services or enforcement actions. However, an internal review later found that the fees should have been explicitly provided for in legislation.

The parliamentary exchange quickly turned heated as several WP MPs repeatedly pressed him for details on the scale of the issue, including how much money had been collected through the fees and how many individuals or entities were affected.

Among the fees involved were charges for expedited building inspections, temporary occupation permits, animal permits and species certifications.

WP MP Fadli Fawzi questioned the legal basis under which the fees had been collected for years across multiple agencies operating under different Acts of Parliament.

He said the amendment suggested the collections had continued “for years on a legal basis that the Government now concedes was inadequate”.

“We have no idea about the actual numbers that are being involved, and we are asked to extinguish the rights of these people to claim any monies,” Mr Fadli said during the debate.

Non-Constituency MP Andre Low also called for greater transparency, arguing that the Government should disclose both the amount collected and the number of affected individuals.

“If the deductions were trivial and affected very few people, the Government can say so. The information exists,” he said.

“The answer is reassuring; disclosure costs nothing. Its absence is harder to explain.”

WP secretary-general Pritam Singh later asked whether the Government had figures on the number of affected parties and the total amount collected.

In response, Dr Syed Harun admitted he did not have “the full number of the extent of the collective amount”, though he attempted to provide indicative examples involving HDB-related charges.

The PAP MP was then seen pausing for an extended period while flipping through stacks of notes in an apparent attempt to locate the figures being requested. At one point, he appeared to make calculations on his phone while the chamber waited.

The exchange stretched for nearly an hour, with Dr Syed Harun repeatedly fielding questions alongside National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat.

Eventually, Speaker Seah Kian Peng called on Mr Chee to address the House directly after another lengthy pause while Dr Syed Harun searched through his documents.

Mr Chee acknowledged that determining the full amount collected would take time, noting that some of the fees may have been imposed “since independence”.

He said the ministry might not possess “the full, accurate record of all the amounts collected” and suggested that this was why Dr Syed Harun was “struggling a little bit to look for the exact information”.

At the same time, Mr Chee maintained that the fees were not wrongful collections, stressing that they were administrative charges intended to recover the cost of services rendered by the agencies.

“Without such fees, these services would otherwise have to be funded by taxpayers,” he said.

When questioned by Mr Low about whether refunds would be issued, Mr Chee rejected the suggestion, saying there was “really no refund to talk about” because the fees had not been wrongly collected.

He added that the issue had been brought before Parliament in the interest of transparency.

Despite objections from the WP bench, the Bill was passed. All 11 WP MPs present formally recorded their dissent, marking the first time the opposition party had voted against a Bill during the current parliamentary term, which began in September last year.

Outside Parliament, clips of the exchange quickly spread across social media, where many Singaporeans criticised Dr Syed Harun’s apparent lack of preparedness during the debate.

One commenter wrote: “I am ashamed that an MP attended Parliament without preparing his homework for questions posed by the Opposition. Dr Syed Harun is NOT my MP.”

Another commenter referenced an earlier parliamentary speech the PAP politician made on integrity, writing: “Mr Integrity couldn’t look at Sylvia Lim when answering the last time around & yesterday again was lost until elder bro Chee came to his rescue…PAP got him on the cheap?”

Others were even more blunt in their criticism.

“Epitome of Fake it till you make it,” one commenter said.

Another netizen mocked the first-term MP by writing: “Aiyo this nominated abang. Election over liao still wayang.”