SINGAPORE - Security spending is set to increase at this year's Budget, said Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat during a visit to the Home Team Tactical Centre on Friday (Feb 2).
Keeping the nation safe and secure "will be a very major item" in the upcoming Budget as it is "a very important area to invest in", he said.
"I do expect our security expenditure to go up because we want to be able to support our security agencies in this very important mission to keep Singapore safe and secure."
More details, including how the nation will pay for the increased spending, will be unveiled in the Budget statement to be delivered on Feb 19, he said.
In 2016, the Home Affairs, Defence and Foreign Ministries spent $19.5 billion on security, $4.7 billion more compared with 2011.
The amount makes up about 27 per cent of total government spending for financial year 2016, according to official figures.
The police will continue to spend more to protect Singapore against the terror threat, which is "at the highest in recent times", said Assistant Commissioner of Police How Kwang Hwee, who is operations director of the Singapore Police Force.
He noted that the police have stepped up its use of technology and specialist teams to fight terror over the past two years.
For example, specialist officers from the Emergency Response Teams and In-situ Reaction Teams have been trained to "respond swiftly and effectively to terror attacks", AC How said.
By 2020, an additional 11,000 police cameras will be installed in public areas such as hawker centres, bus interchanges and linkways, supplementing the current 65,000 of them around the island, said a police spokesman.
A new system called Video Trawling and Analytics System that can recognise faces and allow officers to quickly search images will also be rolled out, he added.
On Friday, Mr Heng, a former policeman, observed how elite officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force and police would storm a room to nab terrorists, respond to public order incidents and rescue the injured.
Mr Heng said he is "glad that Singaporeans are taking (national security issues) seriously".
"Since we rolled out SGSecure, many more people are taking action to raise their knowledge levels (about security)," he added, referring to the national movement to mobilise Singaporeans to prevent and deal with a terror attack.
