Two permanent secretaries appointed

THE civil service has made two new permanent secretary appointments.

The current Permanent Secretary for Defence Development at the Ministry of Defence (Mindef), Major-General (NS) Ng Chee Khern, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) veteran Albert Chua will be taking on new roles as second permanent secretaries.

Starting next month, Maj-Gen Ng, 48, will also hold the position of Second Permanent Secretary for Health, and Mr Chua, 46, deputy secretary (Asia-Pacific and International Organisations) at the MFA since 2013, will be Second Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs.

Maj-Gen Ng took on his permanent secretary role at Mindef this May. He was the director of the ministry's Security and Intelligence Division before that.

A Singapore Armed Forces (Overseas) and President's Scholar, he studied philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford and graduated from Harvard University with a master's degree in public administration.

He started his military career in 1984 and was appointed to the Administrative Service in 1995.

He received the Public Administration Medal (Gold) (Military) in 2005, and from 2006 to 2008 served as Chief of the Republic of Singapore Air Force.

Mr Chua joined the Foreign Service Branch of the Administrative Service in 1992, and served in various posts in the MFA before serving as principal private secretary to Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong from 2004 to 2006.

Mr Chua later became Singapore's high commissioner to Australia in 2008 and, in 2011, permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from the University of East Anglia in Britain, and a Master's in Public Administration degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

asyiqins@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Jul 26, 2014.
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