The latest twist 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 by the security officer 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 about the change in security agency, the condominium's managing agent Melana International declined to comment. K H Security Agency also declined comment.
However, 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”.
This was confirmed to The Straits Times on Friday (Nov 1) by the Security Association Singapore’s executive director Ikhsan Suri and the Union of Security Employees’ executive secretary Steve Tan.
“The whole team of security officers are still with K H Security Agency and have been redeployed to another site,” said Mr Tan. “The company already knew a few weeks ago that they were going to be replaced, so it’s not because of the incident.”
He added that he wouldn’t be surprised if there had been prior issues between the condominium’s managing agent and the security agency over a shortage of security officers, or over certain rules that the managing agent had set out that were hard to impose.
“The relationship between a condo’s managing agent and a security agency is a complex one. In our industry, it’s common practice to implement liquidated damages in the case of security contracts, which is not the most optimal way of operating,” said Mr Tan.
Liquidated damages refer to the financial penalties that security agencies have to pay for failing to execute the rules set out by the service buyers like condo management.
Residents that ST spoke to said they had not been informed of the change, and only noticed that the security agency had been replaced on Friday.
Resident Jessica Wong, 21, told ST that she disagreed with the move to replace the security agency if it was a result of the recent incident.
The first-year student at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts said: "I think this is such a bad move because the resident instead of the security agency should have taken responsibility for the matter. After all, the guard was only trying to ensure our safety."
