Guest of Honour, Mr Desmond Tan, NTUC Deputy Secretary-General

Mr Melvin Yong, Member of Parliament

Honorees and Distinguished Guests

Welcome to the Security Officers Day Awards 2023! First, I would like send apologies from President, SAS Mr Raj Joshua Thomas for not being able to be here today. He is right now at the Istana receiving his Instrument of Appointment from President Halimah Yaacob for his second term as a Nominated Member of Parliament.

SAS celebrates Security Officers Day every year on the 24th of July or 24/7 to recognise the fact that this is an industry that is alert and ready 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This year, we are giving out 767 awards, the largest number we have ever given out. We also have the largest number of Security Officers of the Year – 6 – and the largest number of President’s Medal for Professionalism – 18. This is testament that the good work our officers are doing on the ground is getting more appreciation.

SAS is also happy to introduce the Golden Arrow collar pin for all our Security Officers of the Year to wear, as a visible indication that they are the best in the industry. We hope that this will in time, become a symbol as recognised as the golden keys pins for hotel concierges.

We are also recognising the best employers amongst our security agencies with the inaugural Golden Circle Best Employer Award. 12 companies have won the prestigious award, which is based on objective criteria, for example, whether they had obtained the Ministry of Manpower’s Security Agency Competency Evaluation’s elective module, the PW Mark and having no convictions in the past 2 years. The criteria will be further expanded year on year, to ensure that security agencies in the Golden Circle continue to improve and to truly be the best employers in the industry.

We are delighted this year to have KABAM as our sponsor for the Outstanding Officer Award. KABAM is driven by a profound passion to empower the service workforce through cutting-edge technology, revolutionizing workflows, operations, and decision-making in real-time to achieve unprecedented efficiency and impactful outcomes. Our co-organiser Temasek Polytechnic – Security Industry Institute is a close partner and collaborator. TP-SII is a core institution in the security industry and has contributed immeasurably to the development of the manpower in our sector, as well as in other initiatives. We are truly happy to have forges such a close partnership with TP-SII. We are also happy that our event is also supported by Workforce Singapore, which contributed the medals for the Job Redesign Awards, as well as LEACOV and OSP who will be promoting the Golden Circle Awards.

SAS will continue to find ways to recognise our officers and our good agencies. I would like to wish all our security officers a happy security officers day! Congratulations on all the award winners today and hormat security!