Coronavirus: Singapore rebuts claims Manpower Minister Josephine Teo profited from migrant worker housing

Online posts alleged that Manpower Minister Josephine Teo enriched herself by developing temporary facilities for migrant workers with Covid-19

Comments are ‘untrue, scurrilous and completely baseless’, Teo’s lawyers say

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Singapore’s Minister of Manpower Josephine Teo. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:25pm, 20 May 2020Updated: 4:04am, 21 May 2020

Singapore’s government on Wednesday strongly refuted speculation widely circulating online that suggested the Manpower Minister Josephine Teo had enriched herself from the development of temporary facilities to house migrant workers infected with Covid-19.

The government’s forceful rebuttal was accompanied by a statement by Teo’s lawyers describing the comments as “untrue, scurrilous and completely baseless”. The lawyers served a letter to two people, according to local media.

Local blogs in recent days had been highlighting posts by Facebook users who questioned the involvement of government-linked urban planning firm Surbana Jurong – whose international chief executive Teo Eng Cheong is Teo’s husband – in the conversion of the Singapore Expo, an exhibition centre, into a facility housing 8,000 beds.

The centre is among several so-called community-care facilities that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s government hastily developed in April as Covid-19 infections surged through cramped dormitories that house hundreds of thousands of low-wage guest workers.

Singapore’s Minister of Manpower Josephine Teo meets a migrant worker during a visit to Westlite Papan dormitory, which houses migrant workers who have recovered from Covid-19. Photo: AFP

Teo and Lee’s administration moved quickly to ramp up capacity for the workers at the time as they came under heavy criticism for not preparing well enough for the likelihood of mass infections in the dormitories, where workers sleep in rooms with bunks for up to 20 people.

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