She said that the original plan to roll out the policy shift was to have “a phased out sequence with the proper communications”.
“But what happened in this instance is that, because of a misunderstanding, the numbers inadvertently got put out, then it became an issue, and then everything got accelerated,” she said.
Ms Indranee said the government will do its best to consult, explain, take feedback and communicate with the public in the proper sequence and as quickly as possible.
However, when unintended disruptions to communications plans come along, as with the ACRA incident, “what’s very important is to be able to let all of you know what happened, and also to express our sincere regrets and apologies that it happened, and to reassure people on this”, she said.
Mrs Teo said the incident was “really unfortunate” as it arose out of a misunderstanding.
“If things had gone according to plan, we would have had the chance to do the proper communications. And that is just really something that should not have happened, but it did happen, and for which we are very sorry.”
