House to discuss claims that civil servants disproportionately bought homes near unannounced MRT stops

SINGAPORE – Claims that civil servants and their families disproportionately purchased property near planned but unannounced train stations are up for discussion in Parliament when the House meets on Oct 6.

Nine MPs have raised questions to the Government on the claims, which emerged from a paper published by American non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research in September, according to the order paper released on Oct 5.

Alex Yam (Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC) has asked Prime Minister Lawrence Wong whether the public service has reviewed the findings and whether the Government will independently examine or validate them and what actions will be taken in response.

He has also asked what safeguards are currently in place to prevent and detect public officers from using non-public government information for private financial gain.

Nominated MP Azhar Othman has asked whether there is a regulatory framework to ensure that such actions are curbed and Worker’s Party MP Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) has asked if such actions constitute a breach of statutory duties or civil service rules.

The Government is already reviewing home purchases made between 2007 and 2011 by officers involved in rail planning at the time, in cases where the properties were close to sites subsequently announced as MRT stations.

The Public Service Division said in a statement on Sept 25 that it is identifying the purchases and will review them to assess if there was actual misconduct. If there is evidence that an officer used non-public information to make a property purchase for personal benefit, the case will be referred to the police for further investigation, it added.

The paper said it found clear evidence of “informed trading” by civil servants, citing findings that purchase intensity near planned MRT stations was higher for civil servants compared with a control group of non-civil servants with similar demographic attributes and housing consumption behaviours.

Separately, nine MPs, including four labour MPs, have asked about rising retrenchments in Singapore after the figure climbed to the highest level since the pandemic in the second quarter of 2026.

Retrenchments in Singapore rose to 4,620 in the second quarter of 2026, reaching the highest level since the last quarter of 2020, the latest labour market data said on Sept 21.

The rate at which workers re-entered the workforce six months after retrenchment also slowed to 54.9 per cent, lower than the 60.7 per cent recorded in the previous quarter.

Patrick Tay (Pioneer) has asked which sectors have consistently recorded the lowest six-month re-entry rates for retrenched resident professionals, managers, executives, and technicians (PMETs) in the last 14 quarters.

Meanwhile, Melvin Yong (Radin Mas) has asked the Acting Minister for Manpower Jasmin Lau for the profiles of retrenched workers who were least likely to receive retrenchment benefits or other retrenchment-related financial support from their employer.

MPs also raised several questions on the delay in construction of the North-South Corridor announced in September.

The 21.5km highway linking the northern towns to the city will be delayed by two years due to unexpectedly difficult ground conditions that require more complex construction work.

The North-South Corridor viaduct, which runs from Admiralty Road West to Lentor Avenue, will now open in stages from 2029, instead of 2027.

Six MPs, including several whose constituencies are in the north and central regions of Singapore, have asked about how the delay will impact residents and businesses in the areas around the project.

Parliament will also debate raising the salary of its Speaker Seah Kian Peng and Deputy Speakers Christopher de Souza and Xie Yao Quan.

The Leader of the House Indranee Rajah has raised a motion to peg Seah’s salary to the new guidelines accepted by the Government in September.

The House had heard then that the Speaker’s salary will continue to be pegged at 50 per cent of the increased MR4 minister reference salary. The Speaker’s pay will go up from $550,000 to $900,000 annually, including a bonus and a variable component.

She has also raised a separate motion for each Deputy Speaker to be paid an allowance equal to 15% of the Speaker’s monthly salary, as well as a bonus and a variable component.

The Government has also put in a separate motion to raise the President’s pay from $1,568,900 to $2,568,200 a year.

The three motions will be debated together, and follow guidelines established by a previous debate on political salaries in September.

Similar motions followed the previous debate on ministerial salaries in 2012, where they passed without debate.