Here are the full speeches from the constituency broadcast for East Coast GRC.
People's Action Party
Heng Swee Keat
Dear residents of East Coast GRC, I’m Heng Swee Keat.
Thank you for supporting Lim Swee Say, Lee Yi Shyan and the PAP team here, and before that, Professor Jayakumar and his team. My teammates and I – Cheryl, Kiat How, Maliki and Jessica – are committed to serve you.
Our residents are diverse. What unites us is:
The East Coast spirit of care.
And the pride in our culture and heritage.
Over the years, we have worked hard to develop East Coast, and build a caring, inclusive community.
We revitalised Bedok Town Centre, built the Bedok Nature Way, and many new HDB flats here.
This will allow residents to enjoy nature and our young families to live near their parents. Residents can also look forward to future developments, such as the Thomson-East Coast MRT line, the Bayshore housing precinct, and the Coastal Adventure Corridor.
Right now, we are all concerned with Covid-19.
We understand your anxiety about your jobs, and your families.
Let me assure you that once elected, the PAP team at East Coast, and the PAP government, will continue to work hard to see us through this crisis.
At the national level, we have committed almost S$100 billion to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of our people.
We will do our best to keep you in jobs, help you find new ones, and support you to bounce back stronger.
We will continue to strengthen our connectivity, so that our businesses and our people have opportunities on the global stage.
On the ground, we will continue to take care of your needs, especially in this difficult time.
Cheryl will speak about opportunities – for career and personal development, and contributing to others. Kiat How will talk about the care and support for our seniors.
Jessica will share about rejuvenation of our estates, and supporting our businesses and mid-career workers to stay resilient. And Maliki will touch on connectivity – across the whole of East Coast, and through our values.
Our East Coast GRC manifesto is built on your feedback and contributions, thank you. We will continue with our East Coast Conversations to partner with you, and connect residents together.
My team and I will do our best for you – to protect Our Lives, Our Jobs, Our Future. Together, we will build a better home in East Coast, and emerge stronger.
Cheryl Chan
Dear East Coast residents,
I am Cheryl Chan. I am humbled to have the opportunity to serve the residents of Fengshan in the past five years.
Fengshan is now a part of East Coast GRC. I am happy to be warmly welcome by my teammates. Over the years, I remain connected with East Coast through our youths. While the programs may be different, but East Coast and Fengshan share the same vision of building a caring and inclusive community.
In East Coast, I believed in partnering our youths to implement programmes on the ground. We have two focus areas, first to create opportunities for our young adults to pay it forward in society, second, to enhance their career prospects and personal development.
Together with the schools in the East Coast and community partners, our young residents have stepped forward to bring digital clinics to the seniors and befriended the vulnerables in the community to care for their wellbeing.
Amongst many other initiatives that was done, some of them are the go green efforts, the homework cafe for the underprivileged children.
We have also successfully rolled out the employment and networking series, homework cafe for the underprivileged children, go green efforts and many more.
I am heartened that our youth's passion and active participation have made all these ground-up initiatives possible. I firmly believe that if we all care enough, we can make it happen together, and together, we can improve the lives of fellow Singaporeans.
As we emerge from Covid-19, some young adults have asked what are the opportunities available for them and what more can be done in order to help them cope with the changes. I would like to encourage our young adults to be flexible and to look at more opportunities more widely.
While the PAP is committed to create more job opportunities, traineeships and learning courses, there is no one size that fits all. I think we all need to have that resilient, adaptive mindset and to continue developing each of our own.
To support our youths in their development and career, the existing programmes will be strengthened and will enhance the variety of the many pathways that's available to help them with the future job market.
As each generation's aspirations and dreams evolve, so do the external environment. We shall not be deterred, to experiment, to give our very best and to rebound with each lessons learnt.
Together, we can make our dreams come true.
Tan Kiat How
Dear residents, my name is Kiat How.
Over the last few days, I met many of you. You shared with me your hopes and worries. Thank you for opening your hearts to me.
Many of our seniors wish to remain healthy for as long as possible. Some of you are worried about healthcare costs; and many of you are anxious about keeping up with technology.
Over the years, the East Coast team have put in place many programmes to benefit you, from befriending services, to functional screening to exercise classes at Heartbeat.
If elected, we will enhance these programmes.
We will help you pick up digital skills so that you can better connect with your loved ones. In short, your golden years will be rewarding.
I believe that by working together, we can build a more vibrant and caring community.
As a newcomer in East Coast family, I have much to learn, and hope to get your support, and for your patience.
Jessica Tan
Dear East Coast GRC Residents, good evening. I am Jessica Tan.
Thank you for the unique privilege of having the opportunity to serve you these past 14 years, in both Changi-Simei and East Coast GRC.
We meet often through our many dialogues, chit chat sessions and more recently our virtual sessions. Many of you have become friends.
When you confide in me, I better understand your needs, share your aspirations and feel your anxieties. This partnership has brought to life many projects across the GRC that has benefited our residents.
This is a challenging time for everyone, especially our mid-career workers. We feel your worries and we have programmes to support you. Getting Employed Matters or GEM@East Coast GRC, this is one of the programmes that we have extended to enable our residents to get employment support as well as to connect to jobs.
The programme includes partnership with a network of employers to offer jobs for residents. For a start, we have over 200 jobs available.
We work with small and medium sized businesses in our community, encouraging them to leverage available schemes to transform and stay relevant and more important to also upskill their workers.
This allows them to offer quality services as well as jobs for our residents.
The partnership with residents, the various upgrading programmes have rejuvenated our estates in East Coast GRC. Improving the living environment, accessibility and creating common spaces for residents. We look forward to the HIP for flats in Simei, which we've pushed so hard for; the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme at Bedok and Estate Upgrading in the estates of Limau, Upper Changi and SeaBreeze.
Our team is committed to build on future plans to meet your evolving needs. With your support, we will work to build a strong East Coast GRC and Singapore for all.
Let me now hand over to Maliki.
Maliki Osman
Dear residents of East Coast GRC
Caring for your well being and addressing your concerns have always been the cornerstone of our service to you in East Coast GRC.
Over the years, we make it a point to know you in person, to care for you, to understand your needs, to improve the physical environment and to develop social programmes to meet your needs.
As Mayor of the South East District that oversees the East Coast GRC, I have developed many social programmes to meet the needs of the low income families, for example our recent voucher schemes. We will continue to do more because we will not leave anyone behind. Your wellbeing is our priority.
To experience the wonders of East Coast, we will enhance connectivity for you to travel seamlessly from our bustling and vibrant Bedok Central, to the ever popular Fengshan market, right up to the scenic and rustic Changi Village.
I entered politics as I firmly believe that we have a system that works, one that promises to give and deliver the best to every generation of Singaporeans.
While at Mindef and MFA, I had the opportunity to travel extensively and each time I return home, I humbly reflect on the importance of preserving what we have in Singapore, a country that upholds the principles of equality and meritocracy and living the ideals of racial and religious harmony.
And also a country where the safety and security of every citizen is ensured. This is what the PAP has promised and delivered.
Now let us hear from DPM Heng again.
Heng Swee Keat
Dear residents of East Coast GRC, this is your team. Vote PAP, thank you.
Watch their full broadcast here.
Workers' Party
Nicole Seah
My fellow Singaporeans and voters of East Coast GRC. My name is Nicole Seah and I am your candidate from the Workers' Party.
Covid-19 has hit us at an unprecedented time in our lives.
We are trying to protect our families and livelihoods during the most severe pandemic in modern history.
Covid is hitting the jobs market right as some of us are starting our careers.
Those working in gig economy jobs will also feel the ripple effects. When Covid passes, many of us will be left asking ourselves – where do we go from here?
Our people are our priority and we must never lose sight of that.
As I have spoken to many young Singaporeans, I have learnt that we can do so much more to better protect the Singaporean workforce.
We need to ensure that no Singaporean is denied higher education because of lesser resources. We need to prevent brain drain of bright Singaporeans who seek jobs in other countries due to the lack of opportunities here.
The Workers' Party proposes that universities need to widen access to students from underprivileged backgrounds. We need our schools to provide mentorship and work placement opportunities that will be critical for us to remain globally competitive in the workforce.
As we speak of Singaporeans who have fallen through the cracks during this pandemic, we believe that more could have been done to ensure that the money went into the hands of working class Singaporeans.
Many Singaporeans were not able to receive unemployment payouts, simply because of the type of property that they were living in, or being slightly above the annual income threshold.
For some Singaporeans who had their own businesses, it was also difficult to pay their rent during these Covid months as the money doled out to landlords and property developers might not have trickled down into their hands.
The Workers' Party raised these questions in Parliament to make sure that your voice was heard.
The voters of East Coast GRC have voted consistently for more balance in Parliament over the last two decades. And the voters of East Coast GRC have recognised that the Workers’ Party is a sensible and reasonable opposition, that does not oppose for the sake of opposing.
We know many of you will be facing a very difficult choice in the coming days. We also hope that you would not want a supermajority in Parliament that goes unchecked – that is simply not the consequence we want for Singapore.
A vote for Workers’ Party is a vote for fairness and balance.
And I urge you Singaporeans to see the benefit that you would get as a voter, with both a WP MP and a PA grassroots advisor being equally present in your constituency.
Make Your Vote Count. Vote the Workers’ Party.
Terence Tan
The results of the last General Election was such that our nation came very close to only having one opposition member in the house.
In this election, if an opposition wipe out comes to pass, Parliament may become merely a rubber stamp for the government’s bills and policies. Is “ownself check ownself” the best way forward?
The Workers' Party believes that a stronger opposition presence in Parliament, one that constructively and robustly engages, will lead to better outcomes for our families and our children.
Covid has stress-tested the resilience of our economy, and our savings. We already see businesses shuttering up. Redundancies and wage cuts are occurring.
And more will come. The government has forecast our GDP will be as much as negative 7 per cent this year.
It has stated that we are in for a deep and protracted recession. Singaporeans are understandably anxious for their families, and what the future may hold.
But Singapore was already at an inflexion point prior to Covid. While our GDP was 0.7 per cent, our per capita GDP was S$88,991, Covid had made it clear that our businesses and households have not accumulated sufficient reserves so as to weather this current storm.
Scratch beyond GDP figures, and one will see that household debt was 64 per cent to GDP. A recent OCBC survey, this year, has stated that seven out of 10 Singaporeans will not have insufficient reserves to cover their overheads for any more than six months, if their incomes are lost.
Covid has exposed the need for bold structural and fiscal reforms, if the aim is to make our local businesses and households financially self-resilient, and our economy buoyant, going forward.
Beyond structural reforms, there are issues of pressing concerns brought up by East Coast residents, first it is vital that our local businesses are saved. Our SMEs employ over 700,000 Singaporeans, and they are the backbone of our economy.
SME business owners tell me that they must now wait until after this election for the government to act decisively to reduce rentals.
If rentals are not reduced, they will be hard pressed to prevent retrenching employees, or the imposition of wage cuts.
The government might also urgently consider additional employment allowances for every worker that a company keeps employed beyond what it has already promised.
Further the government might also urgently consider cash grants to Singaporeans who have lost their jobs to help make ends meet as they struggle to find re-employment.
The government had previously accumulated healthy surpluses, and should be able to grant these life-lines readily.
The Workers' Party has fielded 21 candidates in this election, all committed to ensuring that Singapore rises, like a phoenix, from Covid’s ashes.
The government does not have a monopoly of ideas. A constructive opposition presence in Parliament is all the more vital, in these troubling times.
Your vote is secret. Make Your Vote Count. Vote For The Workers' Party
Watch their full broadcast here.