The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) handled 4,000 cases of requests for consular assistance last year, said its Senior Parliamentary Secretary Sam Tan yesterday.

While a majority of requests were reasonable, consular officers also witnessed their share of weird and unreasonable requests. “We had a request for assistance from a Singaporean to seek a refund after he had procured illegal sexual services,” Mr Tan told Parliament.

“Another case involved a Singaporean living in Indonesia and he requested the MFA to ship to him a desktop computer that he had ordered online from the US. Another Singaporean had also sought the MFA’s assistance to persuade his foreign girlfriend to expedite her divorce proceedings with her husband so that he could marry her.”

Such requests, Mr Tan said, divert the Ministry’s limited resources from handling cases of Singaporeans in “genuine distress”. He was responding to Members of Parliament Alex Yam and Sitoh Yih Pin, who had asked about what the MFA deemed as reasonable or unreasonable requests for consular assistance.

In addition to the consular coverage provided by Singapore’s 47 overseas missions and 29 Honorary Consuls-Generals offices, there is an agreement among ASEAN countries to help each other’s nationals in an emergency.

The Republic also requests assistance from friendly countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand to render services to Singaporeans in places where the MFA does not have a presence but these countries do, added Mr Tan.