Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Number of Hours that ICA Officers Work During Each Shift at Land Checkpoints in the Past Five Years

Question:

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs for each year in the past five years, what are the (i) mean and (ii) median number of hours an ICA officer has worked for each shift at the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints respectively.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law:

1.   The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at the land checkpoints are placed on a four-day shift cycle. Officers would work a 12-hours day shift, followed by a 12-hours night shift, and then take two days of rest. Under this shift pattern, ICA officers would work up to 42 hours per week, without including overtime work. The four-day shift cycle was introduced at Tuas Checkpoint and Woodlands Checkpoint in April 2021 and August 2021 respectively.

2.   Checkpoint officers may be scheduled for overtime work during peak periods (for example school holidays, festive periods and long weekends). In the past five years from 2018 to 2022, officers at Tuas Checkpoint and Woodlands Checkpoint had performed an average of nine and 12 hours of overtime per month respectively.