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Digital copy of notification letter acceptable too

Work passes and permits Foreign manpower

We thank Mr Nathaniel Cheong Jun Kang for his letter, “Why the need to print out a document just for it to be stamped?” (April 25).

The Ministry of Manpower is committed to digitalisation efforts to improve efficiency in operations and processes. Officers at our service centres accept both digital and printed copies of the notification letter produced by foreign workers for the registration of their work passes.

We have looked into Mr Cheong’s experience at our service centre. Our officer should have checked if a digital copy of the letter could have been sent to the migrant domestic worker’s mobile phone instead of providing her with a printed copy by default. We have reminded our officers about this.

Chew Ee Tien
Director, Customer Operations
Work Pass Division
Ministry of Manpower

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Why the need to print out a document just for it to be stamped? Straits Times, 25 Apr

I recently accompanied my helper who had an appointment at the Ministry of Manpower Services Centre to register for her work permit.

The officer there asked us for a hard copy of the Temporary Work Permit (Notification Letter), despite us having the soft copy stored in a phone.

I was surprised by the request, as we had assumed that the barcode in the letter could be scanned from the phone’s screen, but the officer insisted that this was the process. I then had to stand by the side of the line while another officer printed out the document.

At the end of the process, the document was returned to us with a chopped stamp indicating that the card registration was complete. I wonder why this notification could not just be e-mailed to the employer.

There were others in the queue who were similarly affected.

We should be minimising these inefficiencies, and resulting damage to the environment, in this digital age. A couple of such cases a day could add up.

Nathaniel Cheong Jun Kang