About 140 people to face fines for not keeping safe distance, not wearing masks

SINGAPORE — About 70 people here will be fined for breaking safe distancing rules, while around the same number of people were caught by enforcement officers for not wearing a mask outside their homes, Mr Masagos Zulkifli said on Tuesday (April 28).

In a Facebook post, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources said that apart from these, “more people are adhering to the safe distancing measures” overall.

First-time offenders will be fined S$300. Repeat offenders will face higher fines or prosecution in court for more serious cases.

Last Saturday, there were reportedly fewer people who were caught by enforcement officers — about 60 did not keep a safe distance and fewer than 20 were fined for not wearing masks.

Mr Masagos on Tuesday said that officers had observed “little to no queues at all” at four popular wet markets and that less than 5 per cent of visitors had gone to the market on the wrong date.

The four markets are Geylang Serai Market, Chong Pang Market at Block 104 and 105 Yishun Ring Road, as well as the markets at Block 20 and 21 Marsiling Lane and Block 505 Jurong West Street 52.

Access to these markets had been subjected to tighter controls since last week in an effort to prevent overcrowding and reduce infections by the coronavirus. Entry to the markets is regulated by a system that makes use of the last digit of a person’s identity card to correspond to the day of the visit.

Mr Masagos said that the collective efforts of everyone are important to prevent the disease from spreading.

“There are early signs that the tightened circuit breaker measures are starting to work. The daily case numbers in our local community are slowly coming down,” he said, adding that the public must press on to bring these numbers down even further.

Mr Masagos said that while the Government has made the decision to tighten precautionary measures until at least May 4 “to protect everyone as far as possible”, some of these restrictions to reduce movement “may be eased when the situation gets better”.

“Until then, let us all do our very best to stay home and comply with the tighter measures.”