MP LOUIS Ng (Nee Soon GRC) is serious about combating food waste, serving other Singaporeans, and saving the Earth. Bringing together PAP MPs, and stakeholders including BreadTalk, Ya Kun International, DBS Bank, Singapore Youth for Climate Action and Free Food for All, this cause has resulted in the landmark Good Samaritan Food Donation (GSFD) Bill.
Drafted from scratch by MP Ng and his team over four dedicated years, the bill makes it easier for people to donate food, paving the way for a kinder, more food-secure and sustainable Singapore.
The Good Samaritan Food Donation Bill comes at a time when people throw tonnes of perfectly edible food away in Singapore. “We have a serious food waste problem in Singapore,” said MP Ng in Parliament this week (7 Aug). “An average of about 750,000 tonnes of food waste was generated every year for the past five years.”
This waste, weighing the same as 2.5 million plates of chicken rice, simply should not happen in Singapore, in this era of climate change and when Singapore imports over 90 per cent of its food.
As MP Ng has said on TikTok, “the amount of food waste in Singapore is absolutely outrageous!”
The bill will remove legal liabilities for restaurants and people who donate food, helping allay fears from potential food donors.
“The concern of legal liability is obviously very significant for restaurants with 80% of those surveyed remaining unsure whether the law will adequately protect businesses,” said MP Ng. “This Bill will protect donors who have done all that they can to ensure the safety and hygiene of donated food.”
PAP MPs and political office holders firmly back the Bill
Source: Eric Chua, Yip Hon Weng, Edward Chia / Facebook
The bill protects food donors from liability so long as the food is safe to eat at the point of handover. They also need to inform recipients how and when to consume the food safely, as well as follow food safety laws.
Our Party is firmly behind this pro-social and pro-sustainability Bill at all levels of leadership. No fewer than 15 PAP MPs and political office-holders stood to support it.
These include Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean, Leader of the House Indranee Rajah, Senior Parliamentary Secretaries Eric Chua (Social and Family Development) and Baey Yam Keng (Sustainability and the Environment), MP Edward Chia (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC), MP Hany Soh (Marsiling-Yew Tee), MP Joan Pereria (Tanjong Pagar GRC), MP Rachel Ong (West Coast GRC), MP Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang SMC), MPs Gan Thiam Poh and Ng Ling Ling (Ang Mo Kio GRC), MPs Poh Li San and Vikram Nair (Sembawang GRC) and MPs Don Wee and Zhulkairnain Abdul Rahim (Chua Chu Kang GRC).
“MSF [the Ministry of Social and Family Development] supports the spirit of the Bill. With the GSFD Bill, we can look forward to an increase in the quantity and variety of donated food as more businesses and individuals are encouraged to donate,” said SPS Chua. “My hope is that this [Bill] will lead to greater choice and dignity for beneficiaries of food support, who will be better placed to get food support that best meets their needs.”
Meanwhile, MP Yip Hon Weng looked to the very real fact that people have food allergies and religious dietary needs — what happens to donors who unintentionally provide food not aligned with these requirements?
“The bill does provide this legal protection as long as the four conditions are met,” answered MP Ng.
MP Edward Chia, who was one of the MPs drafting the GSFD alongside MP Ng, MP Poh Li San and MP Hany Soh, was mindful of logistics challenges. He suggested that Community Development Councils (CDC) could serve as district nodes for efficiently transporting donated food to the hungry. “While investing in additional refrigerated vehicles is one option, it may not always be the most efficient and could contribute to traffic congestion,” he said.
MP Ng agreed about the important role the CDCs can play.
“We will need to encourage businesses and supermarkets to come on board as examples for other food suppliers and operators. We will also need to increase the number of volunteers, food collection points, donation drop off loads and distribution points, stronger partnerships between food rescue groups, SSOs [social service organisations] and FSCs [Family Service Centres] will also help in strengthening food donation networks,” he said.
All that said, MP Ng is far from done with his anti-food waste and sustainability efforts.
“This Bill is only the starting point to create an effective legal and policy framework for the food donation ecosystem in Singapore,” he said. “I hope that the learnings from this bill will form the foundation for future improvements in our food donation landscape, and I hope we will see an update in the next few years”
Stay tuned, then, for MP Ng’s ongoing work, where he will get more diverse stakeholders together, serving up more answers which strengthen our nation’s social compact.
