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Stay-home notice: Firm moves foreign worker to hotel after MOM deems private home too crowded

SINGAPORE — One construction firm boss is now paying up to S$630 a week for foreign worker Narayan Kumar to stay at a hotel after private lodgings provided by the firm were deemed too crowded by the authorities. Stay-home orders for foreign workers who are not staying at dormitories, such as Mr Kumar, have been extended by two weeks until May 18.

Mr Narayan Kumar, 42, an Indian national who works for local construction firm CHH Construction System, has been moved to a hotel, and gets S$20 to S$30 a day to cover food delivered to the hotel.

Mr Narayan Kumar, 42, an Indian national who works for local construction firm CHH Construction System, has been moved to a hotel, and gets S$20 to S$30 a day to cover food delivered to the hotel.

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SINGAPORE — One construction firm boss is now paying up to S$630 a week for foreign worker Narayan Kumar to stay at a hotel after private lodgings provided by the firm were deemed too crowded by the authorities. Stay-home orders for foreign workers who are not staying at dormitories, such as Mr Kumar, have been extended by two weeks until May 18.

Mr Nelson Tee, managing director of CHH Construction System, told TODAY that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) had on Thursday decided that Mr Kumar, 42 — an S Pass holder — was living at a private residence that was “slightly overcrowded”.

Mr Tee, 66, whose business involves building landed residential properties, and installing security systems, has 80 foreign workers in all. Of those, 40 are accommodated in dormitories. The other 39 are all in private residences.

Mr Kumar, an Indian national, who had shared the private residence with workers from other firms, will now be staying at the Harbour Ville Hotel, in Hamilton Rd, in the Lavender area. The cost is S$60 per night for the room with another S$20 to S$30 per day to cover food that is delivered to the hotel.

“We are negotiating for a better room rate for the extended period,” Mr Tee said.

Mr Tee said he had been paying S$500 per month for Mr Kumar to stay in a room of his own in the private residence shared with the other foreign workers.

“My staff (member) has actually been staying in a single room by himself, but the entire unit was overcrowded, (so) I asked him to move out temporarily just to satisfy the MOM’s call,” he said.

“To me, I must ensure (that Mr Kumar) stays safe. This is the priority.”

Other employers in the construction sector said that they had anticipated the extension of stay-home notices for their foreign workers until May 18, given that there were still a handful of cases among their workers each day. The decision was announced on Friday in a joint statement by MOM, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Building and Construction Authority.

MOH said on its website on Saturday that over the past week, there have been an average of 14 confirmed cases per day among work permit holders residing outside dormitories, down from 25 per day the week before.

The stay-home notice, imposed last month to protect employers and workers from further risk of Covid-19 transmission at construction worksites, was originally slated to end on May 4.

This applies to work permit holders and S Pass holders in the construction sector who do not live in purpose-built dorms. They could be living in temporary quarters for construction workers, factory-converted dormitories or private residential premises, for instance.

The employers said that the needs of the workers on stay-home notice — such as food and mental wellness — will be met during this period. They also said they were not surprised by the extension of the stay-home-notice period.

“The extension was quite expected, considering there are still (positive Covid-19) cases being reported (outside of dormitories),” said Mr Johnny Lim, executive director of Teambuild Engineering & Construction.

Of Mr Lim’s 75 workers living outside of dorms, most rely on food deliveries which they pay for out of their own pockets. Some have even stocked up on ingredients and do their own cooking. Only “one or two” needed help, he said.

Besides the food situation, the mental health of the workers also needs to be addressed, the employers said.

A Teambuild Engineering & Construction staff member handing supplies to a foreign worker housed at temporary quarters for construction workers. Photo: Johnny Lim

Mr Kenneth Loo, executive director of Straits Construction Singapore, said that he manages the “mental health and expectations” of his workers by constantly checking up on them over video calls. He will continue doing this over the next two weeks.

Mr Loo said that his main concern during this period is that his firm’s 1,000 workers living outside of dorms are mentally and physically healthy so that “they will be well when things go back to normal”.

EARLIER DISCONTENT

While employers have taken the extended stay-home notice in their stride, some had encountered some challenges when the tighter measures were announced.

On April 11, MOM announced that employers must continue to pay the salaries of foreign workers during this period, and had to do so electronically.

On April 13, MOM said in an advisory that employers must keep work pass holders in their residences as much as possible. Employers should also cater meals to their workers as well as ensure they take their temperature twice daily, the advisory said.

Mr Loo said that the preparation time given to the employers to implement the changes was too short. “Maybe if more time was permitted, there will be less anxiety,” he said.

Agreeing, Mr Rajan Krishnan, chief executive officer of civil engineering firm KTC Group, said that his company “had to keep acting fast” to deal with the changes. He held three to four meetings a day “to make sure instructions are followed”.

Many employers were left struggling to adjust to such back-to-back changes.

Mr Akbar Kader, managing director of Nan Guan Construction, needed to open bank accounts for his employees, but found that the banks were “swamped” with other employers doing the same given the tight deadlines.

He said some employers were “very frustrated” at the sudden need to create bank accounts, as they had previously relied on cash payments.

“I know the urgency of the whole matter... I think it’s one of those things that are unfortunate,” he said. “You just have to bite the bullet and move on.”

In addressing these concerns, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said in a Facebook post on April 25 that MOM had to “react quickly by pushing out new and updated guidelines”.

“If we act fast, we’re aware there’s little time for employers to adjust. If we act too slowly, there is risk of wider transmission. This is the difficult trade-off,” she said.

In her post, she also said that electronic payments were implemented so that salaries can still be provided during the lockdown.

“This is also helpful in preventing salary disputes down the road.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article reported Mr Akbar Kader as saying that employers like himself were “very frustrated” at the sudden need to create bank accounts. This is incorrect. Mr Akbar was referring to other employers. We are sorry for the error.

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Covid-19 coronavirus foreign workers dormitory food

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