SINGAPORE — Reiterating why the Government decided against instantly publishing real-time or raw data of the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) during the height of the haze crisis, Minister of Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said today (July 8) that “the risk of confusion or worse, publishing unverified or inaccurate information was too high”.

He told the House: “I could not take that risk in the middle of a crisis. After the crisis is over, and we’ve had time to look, contemplate (and) decide, we can do so.”

During the crisis, there were wild and unsubstantiated accusations that the authorities were withholding or even manipulating the PSI readings.

Responding to Nee Soon GRC Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah’s question on whether the authorities would consider publishing hourly PSI readings, Dr Balakrishnan reiterated his belief that more data should be provided “for no other reason that this is a Government with nothing to hide”.

Echoing a point made by Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, who chaired the Haze Inter-Ministerial Committee, Dr Balakrishnan said: “Trust is that intangible crucial ingredient to Singapore’s success. Without trust in the Governmentt, anything we say won’t be believed, anything we do cannot be implemented.”

Dr Balakrishnan said that when the authorities plotted the graphs for three-hour and one-hour PSI readings, the shapes were “virtually identical”.

“It wouldnt have made a difference to our recommendations,” he said.

He said that the 24-hour PSI, the 24-hour rolling PM2.5 concentrations and the three-hour PSI “gave us all the signals that we needed”.

Adding that the PSI system was in the process of being updated, he said: “We will continue to provide data which is internationally comparable — which gives you an index of risk — continue to watch short term trends and the moment that anything changes for the better or for worst, we will keep Singaporeans updated.”