When Minister for Social and Family Development Masagos Zulkifli stood before the nation on 23 October 2025 to apologise for the tragic failures that led to the death of four-year-old Megan Khung, his words were solemn and sincere.
“As the lead for the national child protection system, I would like to say that we are sorry for the outcome,” he said, acknowledging that “we cannot eradicate every risk of a child loss.”
It was a necessary apology — but one that feels misdirected. Because while Masagos now leads the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), he was not the minister in charge when Megan’s abuse went undetected.
During the critical period between 2017 and July 2020, when warning signs were repeatedly missed and inter-agency communication broke down, the minister responsible for the MSF — and therefore for Singapore’s Child Protective Service — was Desmond Lee.
He has since moved on to head the Ministry of Education, with little public acknowledgment of the tragedy that unfolded under his watch.
If accountability truly matters, then it is Desmond Lee who owes the nation an explanation, not his successor.
The review panel’s findings revealed not an unforeseeable tragedy, but a sequence of avoidable lapses — warnings that were ignored, procedures that were not followed, and opportunities that were wasted. These were failures that occurred on his watch, not Masagos’s.
And the silence does not end there.
Where is K Shanmugam, who has overseen the Singapore Police Force as Minister for Home Affairs since 1 October 2015?
The panel found that police officers mishandled the report made in January 2020 — the final chance to save Megan’s life.
Two officers have since been disciplined, but there has been no ministerial statement of responsibility, no acknowledgment that these lapses happened under his command.
We cannot continue to speak of “system failures” while refusing to address the people leading those systems.
Accountability must have names — or it is not accountability at all
The government’s response to Megan’s death has been procedural, measured, and — for many — deeply disappointing. The facts are clear, the failures are specific, and the consequences were fatal. Yet no individual has been publicly named.
No senior official has stepped forward to accept responsibility. No resignation has been offered.
The review panel spoke of “gaps” and “lack of clear understanding” — bureaucratic language that softens the hard truth: Megan’s death was not the result of confusion, but of indifference and inertia.
Officers failed to log calls, assess risks, and escalate reports. Managers failed to supervise. Ministers failed to ensure that their agencies acted swiftly and in concert.
If this had happened elsewhere — in the UK, Australia, or the US — it would have triggered parliamentary inquiries, resignations, and nationwide protests. Ministers would have faced public scrutiny, not sympathetic restraint.
But in Singapore, where protests are illegal without a permit, public anger has no outlet.
There will be no marches for Megan.
Not because Singaporeans are apathetic, but because they cannot legally protest. The irony is painful — the same police force that mishandled her case also enforces the law that prevents public assembly.
So frustration festers quietly — around dinner tables, in private conversations, in the hollow space where civic outrage should live.
We are told “the system failed.” But systems do not act — people do. And when no one is held personally accountable, no one truly is.
Singapore prides itself on integrity and competence, but integrity demands ownership, not deflection. When a child dies after every institutional safety net has failed her, responsibility must travel upwards, not stop at the ground level. The chain of accountability cannot end with disciplinary warnings or “counselling sessions” for junior officers.
Yet, perhaps we are seeing the result of a deeper institutional philosophy — one that prioritises a “no-blame culture” over naming those who failed, even when the consequences are fatal.
In 2016, during the parliamentary reply on the Hepatitis C outbreak at Singapore General Hospital, then Health Minister Gan Kim Yong argued that naming individuals would create a “blame culture” and would not benefit patients.
But this is not a near-miss. This is not a process error quietly caught in time. This is the prolonged, preventable death of a four-year-old girl — after 300 days of missed signals, flawed triage, and institutional passivity.
To hide behind “learning cultures” in the face of such loss feels not protective, but evasive.
Public accountability is not incompatible with learning. In fact, it is how trust is built. As former WP MP Leon Perera pointed out then, if we never know who is held accountable and how, how do deterrence, confidence, and systemic trust ever take root?
We do not need scapegoats. We need leaders with the moral courage to say: “This happened under my leadership, and I take responsibility.”
Until that happens, every promise of reform will ring hollow.
Megan’s death should have marked a turning point — a moment not just of reform, but of reckoning. Instead, the response feels like damage control: policy reviews, procedural tweaks, and a carefully worded apology from someone who was not even in charge when she died.
For Megan Khung, the apology came late.
For those responsible, accountability has yet to arrive.
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