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UPDATED
Member of Parliament (MP) Seng Han Thong has apologised for a comment on national television that appeared to criticise the English spoken by Malay and Indian SMRT staff.
In his Facebook post late Thursday morning, Seng said, "I made a regrettable mistake in my language, which may be misconstrued as me saying that people speak bad English because of their ethnicity. I sincerely apologise to all Singaporeans, who have been offended by this error."
In a note on his Facebook late Wednesday night, Seng had posted a partial transcript of the talk show and said that "unfortunately, some of my comments were mis-interpreted".
During the latest episode of "Blog.TV" on Channel NewsAsia on Monday, the MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC had said one of the reasons for SMRT's unpreparedness to deal with the disruptions last week was, according to the company's public relations team, the bad command of English by SMRT's Malay and Indian staff.
He said, "I noticed that the PR mentioned that some of the staff because they are Malay, they are Indian, they can't converse in English good, well enough, so that also deters them, from (sic) but I think we accept broken English."
His quote appears after the 2-minute mark.
Local blog The Online Citizen first posted the story, which quickly drew a flurry of comments from readers, who said the MP should have known better than to single out the minority races.
Munny, a 23-year-old engineer, said that his comment offended her as a Malay.
"The way he said it, it was as if he was stereotyping the entire Malay community, that we are unable to communicate properly," said Munny.
Another Facebook user Mirza Mira added, "Please think before you speak. You are representing the multiracial community. I am very disappointed with your remarks...for pointing minority races for contribution of MRT incident problem."
Luqman Hussin also said that making ground level staff scapegoats for SMRT's recent troubles was unfair.
"I'm very much disturbed that an elected official, chairman of the transportation committee no less, can make such poorly considered and illogical statements. As if it wasn't disappointing enough that ground level SMRT staff are being made scapegoats for management lapses, introducing a racial element into the story is absolutely unforgiveable," he wrote.
Netizen Ashley Ten, 27, said although Seng seemed to be quoting another person, perhaps a public relations officer, "it is shocking to hear such comments by an MP. Whatever it is, it's still a very insensitive and unnecessary thing to say."
Others, however, defended the MP.Tok Nicholas wrote on Facebook, "It's sad to see that so many people are posting many derogatory comments about you sir. Possibly misintepreted your words. It's unfair to be treated this way when you mentioned a quote from the PR."
Yet others felt Seng had yet to explain how his comments were mis-interpreted.
"From the transcript, it is even more incomprehensible. And you have yet to explain, in properly (sic) English, how your comments have been misintepreted," said user Luqman Anuar.
The television programme discussed the train disruptions that happened earlier this month and questioned if it could have been better handled.
Seng, who was one of the five guests on the show, was invited to provide a perspective from his role as the deputy chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport.
During the talkshow, Seng criticised SMRT's top-down communication and said that the staff on the ground were not given instructions quick enough on what to do.
"I believe the staff are waiting for instructions from the top, the operating control centre, the top, if the top did not give instructions, they cannot say anything for fear of that they might say something wrong," said Seng.
