Written Answer by Mrs Josephine Teo, Minister for Manpower, to Parliamentary Question on claims under Work Injury Compensation Act by S pass and Work permit holders

NOTICE PAPER NO. 1576 OF 2019 FOR THE SITTING ON OR AFTER 26 FEBRUARY 2019

QUESTION NO. 1167 FOR WRITTEN ANSWER

MP: Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang

To ask the Minister for Manpower in the last three years, what percentage of claims under the Work Injury Compensation Act made by S Pass and Work Permit holders are determined to be valid or invalid within (i) one month (ii) three months (iii) six months and (iv) longer than six months from the accident respectively.

Answer

1. Investigation on the validity of a work injury claim starts after we have received an incident report from the employee or his representatives.
2. In 2018, 70% of the claims by S Pass and Work Permit Holders were determined to be valid or not within one month. For the remaining claims, determining validity took a longer time because of delays due to various parties.
3. Common reasons for delays include incomplete information provided by the injured employee, difficulty in locating and getting witnesses to come forward, and having to wait for medical assessments of whether an injury occurred or not, in cases where injuries were not visible.
4. For cases that took more than six months, they are mainly due to fraudulent claims investigation. These cases are complex and we want to conclusively establish whether they were work injuries, rather than prematurely ruling them as valid or invalid.