Kenneth Tiong condemns racism, says Air India questions 'purely commercial'

Workers' Party MP Kenneth Tiong has clarified his Air India questions and comments, stating that his concerns were purely commercial and condemning racist comments surrounding the subject.

He explained his position in a social media post on Sep. 5, in response to Senior Minister and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam questioning the intent behind his Aug. 26 social media post on the Indian airline.

The comments

SIA holds a minority 25.1 per cent stake in Air India, the latter of which recently reported a S$3.2 billion loss and was asking for nearly S$1.9 billion worth of fresh equity from its shareholders.

On Aug. 26, Tiong had posted on social media, stating that he would not support nor expect any future use of Singapore's state-owned investment company Temasek’s funds to prop up Air India via Singapore Airlines.

Tiong said, "No one, least of all Singaporeans, owes Air India a living,” And that “If Singapore Airlines wants to continue its bet on Air India, it should do so on its own two feet and not on Temasek’s.”

Speaking to the media on Sep. 5, Shanmugam addressed racist online comments about missing Singaporeans in the Nepal floods and about Singapore Airline's Air India investments, saying they were “shameful, nasty, and totally unacceptable.”

When asked if Tiong's post had crossed any racial or xenophobic lines, Shanmugam said, "I think you best ask him what he intended and what he meant.”

He said that Tiong ought to do his homework and “look at SIA's letter and the facts that I put out today, and ask if he is being responsible.”

SM Shanmugam also said that Tiong is entitled to his views and to ask questions about SIA and Temasek Holdings, the majority shareholder of SIA.

"But neither his views, nor that of any minister, or any other MP, should substitute for the commercial judgment of SIA's management and board of directors," he underscored.

"Once governments or politicians start directing individual investment decisions, commercial discipline will be compromised," Shanmugam explained.

"Decisions will become politicised – shaped by political considerations, rather than commercial judgment. In the end, Singaporeans will bear the cost."

Kenneth Tiong’s reply to Shanmugam

Tiong replied later that day, saying that he had read Shanmugam's comments.

Tiong said he wholeheartedly agreed with Shanmugam that racism had “no place in our society.”

Condemning comments about Singaporeans missing in Nepal as shameful, as well as any attacks on anyone's motives because of their ethnicity, Tiong said that he condemned them without reservation and that “our hearts go out to the victims of the Nepal disaster and to the families waiting for news.”

He said that he had always said that a person, upon taking the oath of citizenship, was part of the Singaporean family and nation, and that any attempt to draw a dividing line between the native-born and naturalised will fail.

“It will fail because that is not in the culture or history of this country. More importantly, it will fail because it is morally wrong.”

He said that it was unfortunate that questions about the Air India deal had become entangled with racist comments, and that his concerns “were and are purely commercial.”

He then elaborated on his concerns in two points.

Air India investment

Firstly, he said that Air India had lost more than S$3.5 billion in 2025, with SIA's share of the loss being over S$800 million.

Air India was now asking its shareholders for an additional US$1.5 billion (S$1.9 billion) to fund a turnaround that its own chairman said might take up to 10 years.

He then said that SIA had S$10.5 billion in cash against S$10.7 billion in debt and that Temasek owns half of SIA.

This meant that SIA could afford to make the call to reinvest in Air India, but it left the question of how many more times similar occurrences would happen and who would pay for such investments and losses when SIA could not.

Previous backstop

Secondly, Tiong said SIA had been in a similar position before, saying that Temasek had backstopped SIA’s 2020 S$8.8 billion recapitalisation when the airline needed money.

Parliament had also approved hundreds of millions in wage and aviation support.

He said that then Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat had called SIA a strategic asset and that the government would consider more direct support if necessary.

Tiong agreed that it was the right call at the time, “but it meant that the line between SIA's money and Singaporeans' money holds only until SIA runs out of it.”

Questions to be answered

He said it was prudent for Singaporeans to ask what happens if the deal went bad and whether Temasek would again act as SIA's backstop.

He questioned what it would mean for Singaporeans' taxes and their quality of life, and whether asking the reserves to underwrite a loss was essentially “directing an investment.”

He said that asking these questions was what Parliament existed to do, and that he would ask these questions of the government on Sep. 8

Concluding, he said that “Singaporeans are best served when we can hold two things at once: Zero tolerance for racism and hard questions about money.”

“We should not let the two get mixed up. If we do, both causes suffer.”