SINGAPORE: Residents will be able to alert social service agencies to people in their neighbourhood who may require social assistance, using a new feature in the OneService app that is being piloted from the second half of this year, said the Municipal Services Office (MSO) on Thursday (Mar 4).

The new Help Neighbour feature will enable residents to “be additional ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ on the ground”, flagging cases of residents who may need social assistance, MSO said.

The trial is a collaboration between the Ministry for Social and Family Development (MSF), MSO and the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC).

Announcing the initiative in Parliament, Senior Minister of State for National Development Sim Ann said: “This is especially important during this pandemic, where residents may find themselves having fewer interactions with their usual social networks.”

READ: Growing preference among elderly residents to ‘age in place’: HDB survey

The feature will also allow AIC, MSF and their partners to reach out and locate these people more quickly, through geotagged data.

There are four main groups who were selected for the pilot: Seniors in need, rough sleepers, cardboard collectors and tissue sellers.

“These four groups were chosen as they are commonly highlighted by residents as requiring some assistance,” said MSO.

Users submitting such requests will have to specify their concerns, which include the health, mental state, mobility, or living conditions of the person in need.

They must also select the type of help they are requesting for, such as a welfare check, housing support or financial assistance.

Users of the feature can also add other concerns or remarks, such as details of the person in need. After that, the feedback will be channelled to the relevant social agencies.

This is among the latest improvements to the OneService app, which now has more than 340,000 users, up from fewer than 200,000 in 2019, said MSO.

FASTER FEEDBACK OPTIONS

Additionally, the OneService Chatbot, which will be available on messaging platforms WhatsApp and Telegram from the second half of this year, will make it more convenient for residents to report municipal issues.

The bot, which is currently on trial until Mar 28, will allow residents to submit feedback in a “conversational” way, MSO said.

READ: Single contractor to handle several municipal services in Tampines under new pilot

The chatbot will respond to users’ messages, guiding them along to identify the issue and prompting them to provide the required information in real-time.

It will then automatically route the case to the agency in charge of the issue, using text, geolocations and images provided by the user.

Ms Sim said that the OneService Chatbot, which is powered by artificial intelligence, can currently predict the case type and agency-in-charge with 80 per cent accuracy, and this is expected to improve as public trials continue.

“This conversational reporting format complements the OneService App’s more structured reporting format,” Ms Sim said.

In addition, MSO will also expand the pilot for OneService Lite, a QR-code reporting tool , to more neighbourhoods and in the vernacular languages.

Residents can simply scan the QR code to submit feedback, without downloading the OneService app.

It has been piloted with Aljunied-Hougang Town Council and Jurong-Clementi Town Council since February last year.

This year, it will be rolled out in Mandarin with Holland-Bukit Panjang and Sembawang Town Councils at selected blocks with a higher proportion of Chinese residents.

“We will study the outcomes before commencing subsequent pilots in Malay and Tamil,” MSO said.

SINGAPORE: The Municipal Services Office (MSO) has launched an initiative to simplify the way residents can report issues.

Under the programme, called OneService Lite, QR codes can be scanned at places where residents frequent, such as HDB lift landings. They can then send their complaint through an online form, without having to download the OneService app, announced Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu.

“We are improving accessibility to services, by bringing our mainstay reporting function to where residents are,” said Ms Fu at the Ministry of National Development’s (MND) Committee of Supply debate on Wednesday (Mar 4).

Since February of this year, OneService Lite has been piloted at 20 blocks under the Aljunied-Hougang and Jurong-Clementi town councils, MSO said.

It will subsequently be rolled out to neighbourhoods under the Choa Chu Kang, Holland-Bukit Panjang and Pasir Ris-Punggol town councils.

Residents will soon be able to submit feedback via social messaging apps like Whatsapp and Telegram through an AI-powered chatbot as well.

UPDATES TO ONESERVICE APP

New features have been added to the OneService app, including a feature to aggregate residents’ opinions.

On the What Say You? survey tool, residents can provide their views on a variety of topics related to their living environment.

Public agencies and town councils will collate and analyse the responses and trends to make decisions that are reflective of residents’ sentiments.

This function has been piloted since mid-January with the likes of Jurong-Clementi Town Council and Choa Chu Kang Town Council to support their Neighbourhood Renewal Programmes and block painting efforts, MSO said.

Ms Fu said that this feature is part a strategy to “connect residents with each other to co-create a better living environment for all”.

Residents will now also be able to book facilities such as function rooms, barbeque pits and sports facilities on the OneService app as well, said Ms Fu.

GETTING THE PROBLEM FIXED

Ms Fu said that the ministry is currently trialling Municipal 360, a productivity initiative that routes feedback submitted through the OneService app directly to the agencies’ contractors so that issues can be resolved faster.

“Routine feedback submitted through the OneService app will be routed directly to agencies’ contractors for speedier resolution,” said Ms Fu.

When cases are resolved, residents will receive photo of the work done from the municipal worker through the app.

This initiative was rolled out in January with the National Environment Agency (NEA) and 16 town councils on board to gather feedback on cleanliness.

There will be new reporting categories, such as “smoking” and “high-rise littering” on the app so that residents can highlight specific concerns for investigation, Ms Fu added.

In general, nearly 60 per cent of OneService app cases have post poll ratings of four and five-star ratings, Ms Fu said. MSO target to raise this to 70 per cent by the end of the year.

SINGAPORE: Customs officers seized close to 12,000 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes in the Tuas industrial area during several raids in November, Singapore Customs said in a media release on Wednesday (Nov 28).

In the first raid on Nov 2, Singapore Customs officers arrested three Singaporean men in an industrial unit at Tuas South Avenue 3. The suspects were retrieving duty-unpaid cigarettes that were hidden in concrete slabs at the time of the raid.

A total of 2,400 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were found.

On Nov 7, customs officers raided an industrial unit at Tuas South Street 1 and found 5,431 cartons and 29 packets of duty-unpaid cigarettes hidden in six excavator arms.

Five Malaysian men were arrested.

The third raid took place on Nov 24, in a yard at Tuas Avenue 14. Singapore Customs officers saw four men retrieving duty-unpaid cigarettes that were hidden in eight concrete slabs and loading them onto a lorry.

The four men – an Indonesian, a Malaysian and two Singaporeans – were arrested and a total of 4,148 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were seized.

The total duty and Goods and Services Tax evaded amounted to about S$1,074,390 and S$78,520 respectively, Singapore Customs said.

“We advise owners and managing agents of industrial premises to exercise due diligence to prevent their premises from being used by syndicates for duty-unpaid cigarette activities,” said Singapore Customs Assistant Director-General for intelligence and investigation Yeo Sew Meng.

“They should strengthen access controls at their premises and also look out for red flags such as persons seeking to rent the premises on a short-term basis, paying cash, and not being able to provide a credible business purpose for the rental.”

Those found guilty of buying, selling, conveying, delivering, storing, keeping, having in possession or dealing with duty-unpaid goods will face a fine of up to 40 times the amount of duty and GST evaded, six years’ jail, or both. Vehicles used in the commission of such offences are also liable to be forfeited.

Members of the public with information on such activities can call the Singapore Customs hotline at 1800-2330000, or email [email protected] Alternatively, they can use the [email protected] mobile app, available for download from the Apple Store or Google Play.