I drove home from Malaysia last week and faced a nightmare clearing immigration on the Singapore side of the Causeway.
It being a weekday and having arrived just before noon, I thought there would be no hassle. But it took me 90 minutes to pass through the Singapore immigration and Customs.
Ironically, all the immigration bays were open and the officers did their work swiftly. Similarly, the Customs officers checked all cars with great efficiency.
The root of the problem was a bottleneck between the immigration booth and Customs bay.
Imagine a work line with 20 immigration booths processing a constant flow of cars, which then merge into two rows leading to the Customs bay, and then into a single file prior to the Customs inspection.
To make matters worse, there were four to five rows of motorcycles alongside the single row of cars in the queue. This situation is unacceptable as it is dangerous for the motorcyclists queueing within inches of one another. If a motorcyclist loses his balance, he could be run over by a car.
The bottleneck also adds to environmental pollution, which the officers on duty and motorcyclists have to endure.
Lastly, the bumper-to-bumper traffic, and resultant honking and flared tempers, creates a poor impression of Singapore in the minds of visitors.
The bottleneck was not present before the recent checkpoint breach. Surely, this cannot be the intention of the authorities in beefing up checks.
I hope the authorities will quickly fix this man-made, non-security-related problem at the Causeway.
Raymond Koh Bock Swi
Review operational procedures at checkpoints
While it is important to take disciplinary action against the officers responsible for the breach in border security at Woodlands Checkpoint, we should look at how the police and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority operate at our checkpoints ("Checkpoint breach: Poor responses, judgment"; Tuesday).
Is there adequate staff to man the checkpoints? How long are their shifts? Are they mentally and physically fatigued, to the extent that the tendency to make mistakes is higher compared to that in other occupations? Should the shifts be shorter in duration with more breaks in between, so that they will be more alert?
Lastly, should the operational procedures be reviewed to ensure that the officers have the support required, in order to function effectively?
I don't think it is fair to just reassure people that those responsible have been disciplined. Were adequate processes in place to ensure they had a chance of doing a thorough and competent job?
If not, then it is not correct to blame only those directly responsible, when there should be collective responsibility, starting from the top, to identify and fix any lapses in the modus operandi.
Arthur Lim Teck Meng
Empower officers to raise alarms without fear
At the time of the checkpoint breach, the officers and ground commanders may have hesitated to raise the alarm swiftly because of the fear of being reprimanded for letting an intruder sneak in ("Checkpoint breach: Poor responses, judgment"; Tuesday).
The Woodlands Checkpoint is one of the busiest in the world and incursions are bound to happen, no matter how many safeguards are put in place.
The key to a swift and appropriate response is to empower officers to raise alarms without fear of being reprimanded or blacklisted.
Front-line security personnel and ground commanders are often required to make swift judgment calls even if, at times, the grounds for suspicion are shaky.
Skilled terrorists rarely exhibit telltale signs to raise suspicions. It takes years of experience for officers to hone their instincts to the level where they know "something is not right".
Officers would be reluctant to make judgment calls if they are punished over false alarms that were raised in good faith.
As a military policeman during my national service days, I once raised an alarm that activated personnel from other branches of the armed forces for a thorough security sweep. It turned out to be a false alarm but instead of reprimanding me, my immediate superiors reassured me that my response was correct.
With that, my fellow military policemen were reassured that they could discharge their duties without fear of being punished, as long as their decisions were made in good faith.
So instead of meting out punishment when things go wrong, maybe we should reassure officers and encourage them to make judgment calls whenever these are required.
Lim Kong Hiong
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