Appointment of New Chief Executive Officer for the National Environment Agency

Appointment of New Chief Executive Officer for the National Environment Agency

Mr Luke Goh will be appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Environment Agency (NEA) with effect from 26 February 2021. He will succeed Mr Tan Meng Dui, who will be appointed CEO of the Housing & Development Board (HDB) on 26 February 2021.

Contributions of Mr Tan Meng Dui

Mr Tan Meng Dui, 53, has been the CEO of NEA since 2 October 2018. Under his leadership, NEA made significant progress in reviewing key policies, building new capabilities and rolling out new programmes to ensure that Singapore's environment remains clean and sustainable. He also led NEA's transformation to be more nimble and future-ready to address evolving organisational needs and environmental challenges. Central to the transformation is an organisational-wide restructuring to create capacity, build capabilities and deepen collaboration with key partners, including the public whose support is key to NEA's mission success.

Several key policy reviews, infrastructure developments and regulatory changes were implemented during Mr Tan's tenure. These included the review and enhancement of the management model of new hawker centres; transforming the after-death services industry to improve professionalism and service quality; development of improved infrastructure to facilitate recycling, such as dual chutes for non-landed housing and new recycling labels under the National Recycling Programme; launch of the Tuas Nexus development; introduction of the Extended Producer Responsibility System for electrical and electronic waste; as well as the implementation of the first No Smoking Zone in Orchard Road.

Under Mr Tan's guidance, NEA led the national response to the haze episode in 2019 and managed the historic dengue outbreak in 2020. Significant progress was made in dengue surveillance with the expansion of Gravitraps deployment to landed estates, announcement of the expansion of Project Wolbachia – Singapore to the whole of Tampines and Yishun towns, as well as formulation of an operational strategy to scale-up Wolbachia technology deployment for Singapore. Mr Tan also established key research and development programmes in robotics and waste management, laying the foundations for NEWSand and NEWOil development in future, and leveraged data analytics, sensors and technology for smart delivery of environmental services.

Mr Tan was instrumental in leading NEA's swift responses to Singapore's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. This included oversight of disinfection tasks in response to new COVID-19 positive cases, and public advisories on effective disinfection methods and disinfectants. He spearheaded the SG Clean Campaign in February 2020 to galvanise collective action from individuals and businesses to keep our public premises clean, to reduce the risk of disease transmission. These included marketing communications campaigns on new social norms, stepping up inspections of public toilets, and rolling out the SG Clean quality mark to various public premises with high human traffic. Mr Tan was deeply involved in the planning and execution of the whole-of-government safe distancing management efforts, with NEA leading the charge in implementation of safe management measures at the markets and hawker centres. He also oversaw the rapid ramp-up of a wastewater-based surveillance capability to assess COVID-19 transmission in foreign worker dormitories, and the development of a national strategy for wastewater testing for disease surveillance within the community.

Incoming CEO Mr Luke Goh

Mr Luke Goh, 45, is currently Deputy Secretary (Trade) in the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Prior to this appointment, he was Senior Director, Public Service Division and concurrently Institute Director, Institute of Governance and Policy in the Civil Service College. He has also held several appointments in the Ministry of Health and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Mr Goh graduated from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in 1998. He was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2019.

Registration of appreciation

The Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) would like to place on record our deep appreciation for Mr Tan Meng Dui's valuable contributions to NEA and the MSE Family, and welcome Mr Luke Goh.

Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment

30 November 2020