SINGAPORE - The services of the security agency at Eight Riversuites condominium in Whampoa, where a resident verbally abused a security officer over the Deepavali weekend, have been terminated.
The cessation is not related to the spat, the Security Association Singapore told The Straits Times.
When The Straits Times visited the condominium on Friday (Nov 1), security officers from K H Security Agency had been replaced with those from a new agency, donning a different set of uniforms. ST understands the new agency is Alpine Security.
The latest development in the saga comes after the resident in question, Mr Erramalli Ramesh, reportedly apologised to senior security supervisor Steven Heng during a private, hour-long meeting on Wednesday.
Mr Erramalli had been caught on video swearing at Mr Heng after being told that he needed to pay a $10 fee for guests parking at the condo after 11pm. The video, which was posted on social media, swiftly made its rounds online and sparked outrage among netizens.
When contacted, the condominium's managing agent Melana International declined to comment. K H Security Agency also declined comment. But industry insiders said the termination is unrelated to the recent dispute and the security agency had been notified of the impending replacement "a few weeks ago".
The Union of Security Employees' executive secretary Steve Tan said: "The whole team of security officers are still with K H Security Agency and have been redeployed to another site. The company already knew a few weeks ago they were going to be replaced, so it's not because of the incident."
He added that he would not be surprised if there had been prior issues between the condo's managing agent and the security agency over a shortage of security officers, or over rules the managing agent set out that were hard to impose.
Some residents told ST they were not informed of the change and only noticed the security agency had been replaced on Friday.
A resident who has lived at the condo for five years and wanted to be known only as Mr Tan, 70, said such changes are quite regular and the timing is merely coincidental.
He said an employee from the agency had looked for him on Friday to bid him farewell.
Mr Tan said: "This is just unfortunate timing, and likely has nothing to do with the recent incident."
Additional reporting by Clement Yong
