To meet the threat of terrorism, emergency preparedness days will be rolled out to all constituencies in Singapore within the next 18 months, said Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs in its progress update on the SGSecure movement.
The main aim of SGSecure is to prepare and train Singaporeans on how to prevent and deal with a terror attack.
The enthusiasm of SGSecure can be fathomed from the fact that since its launch on September 24 last year, officers and volunteers of Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) have visited more than 220,000 households to explain what SGSecure is to residents.
Further, 36 emergency preparedness days, which help the public practise responding to a terror threat, have been conducted. In addition to this, 14 crisis response exercises have also been completed.
Every constituency will have undergone at least one such exercise by 2019, said MHA.
Singaporean government has also launched the SGSecure app to sensitise the people. A total of 843,000 devices now have the app. People can receive news alerts on the terror-related incidents through this app.
Experts feel that there has been uptick in awareness in people relating to terror threats.
Associate Professor Kumar Ramakrishna, head of policy studies at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said, “From my own analysis, people are aware that there is such a thing as SGSecure. I detect that among the public at large, there is an uptick in awareness that we do have a threat of transnational terrorism.”