Looking out for the poor his aim

SINGAPORE — Growing up, Mr Sukdeu Singh’s family was poor, such that he was given free milk under the School Milk Scheme for malnourished children in primary school.

After completing his GCE ‘O’ Levels, he stopped school in order to join the workforce “because of poverty”.

Citing his difficult childhood, the Singaporeans First Party new candidate introduced today (Aug 29) said protecting the less-fortunate would be high on his agenda if he were to be elected to Parliament. “I’m concerned about poverty, about the children who go to school hungry,” said Mr Singh, 64, a divorcee with a 26-year-old son.

After 31 years in the Singapore Police Force, where he conducted investigations and trained young police officers, he retired in 2000. Having stepped down from the workforce, he started doing community service in North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

“My son wanted to learn diving there, and he was still young, so I followed him,” he said. Once settled in, he decided to pool money together with a friend, bought a second-hand projector in Singapore and started conducting night classes for the children living in the kampongs.

Mr Singh returned to Singapore in 2013, and joined SingFirst last August.

While he acknowledged that foreigners are needed for jobs shunned by locals, “we cannot allow the liberalisation of employment passes to S passes, and an increase in PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) at the expense of our anak Singapura (Singapore’s children)”, said Mr Singh.