Ministers spar with NCMP Leong Mun Wai over suggestion of Employment Pass levy

A BLANKET levy on Employment Pass (EP) holders is a signal to foreign investors that Singapore doesn't welcome them bringing in their own talent said Member of Parliament Gan Siow Huang on Thursday.

Ms Gan, who is also Minister of State for Manpower, was taking issue with Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Leong Mun Wai's suggestion to impose a S$1,200 monthly levy on all EP holders.

"I was disappointed that the Budget only adjusted the S Pass quota for the manufacturing sector for managing the local foreign worker mix," said Mr Leong in his speech on Thursday.

"This levy will differentiate the true foreign talents, who are high-salaried and less affected by the S$1,200 levy, from the foreign talents who are simply cheap labour that compete unfairly with Singaporeans and whom our economy has become overly dependent on," said Progress Singapore Party's (PSP) Mr Leong.

Ms Gan responded that she "cannot help but come to the conclusion that Mr Leong and PSP do not believe that Singapore should be an open city connected to the world, having locals and foreigners complementing each other" .

"We have seen in many other mature democracies where anti-foreign sentiments are being played out and politicised. And we also know that many countries are grappling with the challenges of globalisation. So are we. But we must try to strike a balance between globalisation and building our own identity in Singapore," she said.

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"If we start telling companies that they can invest, but can only employ Singaporeans for the top jobs, we will end up chasing them away and thousands of good jobs for Singaporeans will be lost as well."

In response, Mr Leong said PSP is in "total agreement to the fact that we are an open global city". But, he stressed that the rebalancing of foreign and local talent is needed, and that the current rebalancing process is "going on too slowly".

"I brought up the issue of the CEO of DBS Bank, not because it was meant to be a personal attack, but I'm trying to emphasise (the question of) why is there no succession planning being done over the course of 20 years? Recently, another local bank has employed another foreigner to be the CEO," said Mr Leong, referring to OCBC's pick of Hong Kong-born Helen Wong as its first female chief executive officer (CEO).

Mr Leong had, in his maiden speech during the debate on the President's Address in 2020, said he was "deeply disappointed" that DBS did not have a home-grown chief executive. The bank's CEO Piyush Gupta was born in India and became a Singapore citizen in 2009.

Mr Leong said the concept of "localisation" - finding locals for the top posts in the financial sector - was a must in the 80s and 90s but levelled that it doesn't seem to be a KPI (key performance indicator) for the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Ong Ye Kung, Minister for Transport and board member of MAS called Mr Leong's "grandstanding" "grossly unfair", pointing out that he gave a full speech detailing the efforts taken by MAS over the decades to establish Singapore as a financial hub and create jobs for locals during the debate of the President's Address in September last year.

Mr Leong subsequently withdrew and apologised for his comment on MAS not having KPIs but still asked why the proportion of retail managers who are foreigners are in the 30-40 per cent range.

"Retail banking is about our own domestic market. Can it be 80, 90 per cent (helmed by locals)? Are we satisfied with 60, 70 per cent?"

Mr Ong responded: "Why are 30 per cent of retail managers still foreigners? It's because we are a global financial centre. We have 70 per cent, and a much larger pie and a larger share. But that is the essence of being an open and international financial sector."