Minister’s Awards Presentation Ceremony 2020 Congratulatory Remarks – Speech by Associate Professor Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of National Development

1. It has been 23 years since the launch of the Home Team concept. It is heartening to see that working together as one, under the Home Team banner, has become deeply entrenched in our DNA. This has no doubt made us more effective in delivering our mission to keep Singapore safe and secure. Today, we recognise the teams who exemplify this spirit, and who have delivered outstanding outcomes in major operations and cases in the past year.

2. We are also cognisant that we can achieve much better outcomes when we work collaboratively with our stakeholders. These include other Government ministries, the private sector and the community. Today, we also pay tribute the Home Team’s partnership with these external agencies – a total of 26 public agencies, 15 private entities and ten foreign Government agencies are part of this year’s award recipients.

3. One example of a Home Team-private entity collaboration was Operation Unmask. This operation involved the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and private entities such as Carousell, DBS, UOB, OCBC, CIMB, HSBC, SCB and Maybank. The excellent collaboration resulted in the arrest of 21 persons for their involvement in more than 440 cases of e-commerce scams relating to the sales of face masks, amounting to almost $11 million in 17 island-wide operations.

4. An example of a Home Team-foreign counterpart collaboration was Exercise Chembridge at the Tuas Second Link. This operation involved the Singapore Civil Defence Force, SPF, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, and National Environment Agency on the Singapore side, as well as Malaysia’s Department of Environment, Fire and Rescue Department, Royal Malaysia Police, Immigration Department, National Disaster Management Agency, Department of Health and PLUS Malaysia Berhad. This exercise successfully validated the plans and interoperability of the Emergency Response Plan to deal with accidents involving the transportation of hazardous substances across the Tuas Second Link bridge.

5. Well done, and congratulations to all of the Home Team Achievement Award and Operational Excellence Award recipients!