Congratulations to all the honourees of the Security Officers’ Day Awards 2020! 

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The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has underscored the importance of essential services, including security officers, who have played an integral role in ensuring the safety and security of the public by stepping up in their access control, temperature taking and registration roles. This has been a nation-wide and an industry-wide effort. It is therefore fitting that we have honoured a record number of 252 security officers this year. One of our Security Officers of the Year for 2020, SS Thurkadevi d/o Nanda Gopal was specifically recognised for her efforts in assisting with COVID-19 measures. 

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SAS is also delighted today to launch the www.hormatsecurity.sg website, which will be the main go-to portal recognising security officers. We are proud of this as a furtherance of the #hormatsecurity campaign launched by the Security Industry Council two years ago, and we invite all security officers, and members of the public to visit the site often. 

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The COVID-19 crisis has caused many jobs to be threatened as companies downsize to cut cost. As an essential service with a particular role to play in the fight against COVID-19, the security industry continues to have many opportunities for job seekers. We must however, ensure that these jobs are filled fairly and on a meritorious basis. In this regard, the Security Association Singapore (“SAS”) adopted on 25 June a Declaration on Discriminatory Stipulations by Security Buyers. This Declaration encapsulates the commitment by the security industry to stand against stipulations made by buyers that stipulates such discriminatory conditions for the deployment of security officers at their sites, such as age, race, language or gender. This is an important step taken by the security industry and is in direct support of the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices. 

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We are also looking at supporting our members’ employees who may have fallen on hard times during this crisis. In this regard, SAS together with the Singapore Business Federation (“SBF”) Foundation has set up the SAS-SBF Foundation Compassion Fund (the “Compassion Fund”), to provide cash support to these employees. As this was our first fund-raising effort, we set a target of $50,000. I am delighted to announce that as of this morning, we have surpassed our target, with a total contribution by our members of over $62,000. I am happy to heartily thanks all our members for their generosity and would like to mention, in particular, Reachfield Security & Safety Management Pte Ltd and Soverus Pte Ltd who donated over $10,000 each to the Fund. The spirit of giving in our security industry is very strong even during these tough times. The contributions by our members will be matched 1-for-1 by the SBF Foundation, and I would also like to thank SBF Foundation for their generosity and support for the workers in our industry. 

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As we continue our fight against the COVID-19 virus, our security officers and the security industry will continue to play our part!

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To all my fellow security officers, today is your day. Well done to all of you, congratulations and Hormat Security!