By George Soriano
For the first time, over 80 uniformed personnel of the Queenstown Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC) and Alexandra Fire Station (AFS) were jointly visited by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and key union leaders on the morning of 31 January 2014.
National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Central Committee Members, led by NTUC President Diana Chia and NTUC Secretary-General Lim Swee Say, joined PM Lee in greeting the uniformed personnel who forgo their holidays and continue to work on the first day of the Lunar New Year.
The visit was to show appreciation for uniformed personnel, who under the law cannot be members of the union, for their dedication in safeguarding the safety of our people.
“I’m very happy to visit the Home Team Police and Civil Defence Officers and thank them for serving and being on duty when the rest of us are peacefully celebrating Chinese New Year. It takes a lot of training, dedication, professionalism… We’ve seen them respond on many occasions. They are a very important group of people doing good work,” PM Lee said.
The commanding officers of NPC and AFS also shared with PM Lee their teams’ daily operations, including equipment drills and training, and showcased some community engagement projects.
Each of the personnel received Mandarin oranges and a bag of cookies as tokens of appreciation from the Prime Minister and the Labour Movement.
The visit ended with a Lo Hei session to usher in the Year of the Horse.
