The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) will review the definition of animals in the Road Traffic Act.
On 9th May 2016, Nee Soon GRC MP Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked in Parliament if the definition of “animals” in the Road Traffic Act will be revised to be aligned with the Animals and Birds Act.
Currently, under the Road Traffic Act, motorists have to stop if they hit an animal like a dog, horse, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat or cattle – but not others, including cats and wild boars.
Senior Minister of State at MHA Desmond Lee explained that this definition was originally intended to ensure restitution to owners of farm animals after an accident. Thus, the definition was limited to farm animals of
commercial value.
He said MHA will review this definition, especially in the context of road safety.
Louis Ng asked three other questions:
1. Complaints against licensed moneylenders for unfair contracts and practices
Reply from Ministry of Law: The Ministry received 129 such complaints in 2015, and also conducts regular inspections.
In 2015, 17 moneylenders were subjected to licensing action, such as revocation of licence and forfeiture of security deposit. The Ministry has introduced and will be introducing more measures to strengthen protection for borrowers, such as controls on interest rates and fees.
2. Applications for charity and IPC (institution of public character) status
Reply from MCCY: 17 out of 86 applications for charity status in 2015 were rejected. This was because they didn’t have sufficiently charitable or substantive activities. 3 out of 39 IPC applications were rejected, due to poor governance or activities which were not wholly beneficial to the community in Singapore.
3. Plans to increase number or size of nature reserves or nature areas
Reply from MND: Nature Reserves and Nature Areas in Singapore make up about 5% and 3% of Singapore’s land area respectively. Together, they’re as big as about eight Ang Mo Kio towns, or almost half of all housing land in Singapore. MND has also been adopting, and will continue to look for, unique solutions to conserve nature in our urban setting.