Following the Cabinet reshuffle in Singapore where Ong Ye Kung is due to relinquish his role as the Minister of Transport after just 9 months in the role, and take over as Minister of Health on 15 May, Ong said that he was “wordless”.
Ong said in an interview with ONE FM 91.3, Ong said that he didn’t expect to be moved to another ministry so soon.
He revealed that he was ready to stay at the Transport Ministry for 5 years.
Ong also shared that when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told him that he would be moving to helm the Health Ministry, he was “wordless”.
Ong spent 45 minutes chatting with the PM.
He also shed some light into his time as the Minister of Transport, sharing that the decision to close the North East MRT Line earlier on Friday and Saturday nights was crucial, because it helps to speed up the replacement works of insulators along the line.
Although his decision wasn’t too popular with some commuters, Ong said that it was imperative for the maintenance staff to have more time to work on the replacement works.
He also shared about his time as the Minister of Education prior to his appointment as the Minister of Transport.
He sahred that one of the toughest decisions that he had to make during his time there was to keep schools open during the first onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He rationaled that he didn’t want a whole generation of kids to miss out and wanted to keep the schools open to give them an environment to learn, despite other countries shutting their schools down in fear of an outbreak within the schools.
Images source: Ong Ye Kung Facebook and Google Street View