SECURITY BREACH: LTA WILL NOT HESITATE TO PENALISE TRAIN OPERATOR

By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah

SINGAPORE, Aug 20 (Bernama) -- The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will not
hesitate to penalise the republic's train operator, SMRT Corp Ltd, following a
second security breach at its train depot.

Minister of State for Transport Josephine Teo warned the government adopted
a zero-tolerance towards such incidents to ensure the security of Singapore's
transport system and commuters, reported local television, Channel NewsAsia.

She was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Circle Line emergency
preparedness exercise at Buona Vista Station Saturday.

This was the authority's first comment since an SMRT train parked at Bishan
Depot here was found vandalised on Wednesday morning.

The first security breach was detected in May, last year, leading to a Swiss
national being charged with trespassing an MRT depot and vandalising an SMRT
train.

According to Teo, the latest breach was "a very serious incident", and that
"any breach is one too many".

She said SMRT was asked to give the police and LTA a full account of what
had happened, and expected the train operator to take immediate action to plug
any gap in its security system.