Singapore: Temasek calls out racist Fb posts focusing on its Indian workers

SINGAPORE, Aug 15 (The Straits Instances/ANN): The Republic’s funding firm Temasek has known as out posts on social media focusing on its Indian workers as a “divisive, racist marketing campaign” aimed toward stirring up hatred and intolerance.

In a press release posted on-line on Friday (Aug 14), the agency stated it “has its roots in Singapore, the place there isn’t any place for xenophobia, racism, or hate speech”.

Temasek stated of the “racist marketing campaign”: “This makes us very offended on the false claims perpetuated. The Singaporeans amongst us are additionally ashamed at such hateful behaviour on the Singapore social media. We stand by our colleagues who’ve been dragged into this via no fault of their very own.”

Some posts circulating on Fb in current days have highlighted the LinkedIn profiles of sure Temasek workers, and their educational {qualifications}, and questioned why high positions within the agency have been stuffed by foreigners and never locals.

Staff of Customary Chartered and DBS Financial institution have been additionally focused in among the posts.

Temasek stated it has referred the posts to Fb which it stated are in clear breach of Fb’s group pointers on hate speech.

The funding agency stated it’ll “proceed to press them to be extra lively in stamping out such hate speech, wherever it happens on their platforms”.

In its assertion, Temasek stated its hiring practices are primarily based on values reminiscent of meritocracy, excellence and integrity.

The funding agency adopts an open coverage in constructing its group that appears at values, passions, functionality and willingness to study, “whatever the color of our pores and skin, or the color of our passports”.

The corporate additionally underscored the variety of its workers, which spans 32 nationalities throughout places of work in eight international locations.

“Amongst our 600 robust employees at our headquarters in Singapore, 90 per cent are Singapore residents or everlasting residents (PR). That is broadly the identical amongst our senior management (managing administrators and above),” it stated.

Globally, the nationality mixture of its workers is about 60 per cent Singaporeans and 40 per cent different nationals, of which round 10 per cent are Singapore PRs, the agency stated.

Aside from Singaporeans, the composition of its employees is from China (9%), the USA (7%), India (6%), United Kingdom (3%) and Malaysia (3%). It stated that this combine will proceed to alter because it opens extra places of work in Asia, Europe and elsewhere.

Temasek additionally stated it inspired mobility as a method of creating its expertise, which incorporates transferring its Singaporean workers overseas in addition to its native hires in abroad places of work to its Singapore headquarters and different places of work “to broaden their experiences and construct their management capabilities globally”.

“As an lively international investor, and a ahead wanting establishment, it will likely be silly of us to not faucet on the worldwide pool of expertise,” it stated.

“There’s not solely worth in range, however the cross fertilisation of experiences and concepts throughout geographies, and the power to attach the varied dots, has develop into considered one of our key strengths.”

The funding agency stated that whereas it’s the prerogative of individuals to make use of social media to air completely different views, Temasek “stands towards views that search to perpetrate division and disrupt the social cohesion that has taken a few years for us to attain right here in Singapore”.

It stated: “We imagine there’s a position for constructive debate and fact-based opinions in our society, even on contentious or delicate matters, and even on social media.

“That ought to be balanced with civility and respect for others. There isn’t any place in anyway for racism to function in these debates. Insidious posts designed to stir hatred and intolerance don’t have any place in our society, and we denounce them.”

The Straits Instances contacted Fb on Friday night time, however the social media firm didn’t reply by press time.

Among the posts being shared on Fb have been screenshots of earlier posts, presumably to evade being flagged by the platform’s automated safeguards that detect hate speech.

The social media posts come within the wake of the Ministry of Manpower final week inserting 47 employers on the Honest Consideration Framework watch listing for doubtlessly discriminatory hiring practices. Among the many 47 corporations, 30 have been within the monetary providers {and professional} providers sectors.

Companies on the watch listing can have their Employment Move purposes carefully scrutinised, and people who are recalcitrant or uncooperative can have their work cross privileges reduce.

On Wednesday (Aug 12), the Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS) additionally urged monetary establishments to groom native leaders and develop their Singaporean expertise pool.

MAS stated that monetary establishments ought to proceed to determine Singaporeans with excessive potential for management roles and develop the provision of gifted locals. – The Straits Instances/Asian Information Community