Chee Hong Tat joined the Administrative Service in 1998. He worked in various ministries, including Home Affairs, Finance, Transport and Education. Chee was Principal Private Secretary to the late Minister MentorLee Kuan Yew from 2008 to 2011. As Mr Lee's PPS, Chee was, for the large part, out of the public's eye. He however received attention following a letter he wrote to the Straits Times Forum on 7 March 2009 in response to a call by Nanyang Technological University's Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies for a return to dialects saying that "it would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin". The NTU incident and the letter are however cited in Lee Kuan Yew's book My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore’s Bilingual Journey. “I thought it was a daft call. My then-principal private secretary Chee Hong Tat issued a reply on my behalf.” Chee was one of the eight pallbearers for the funeral of Mr Lee Kuan Yew. After Lee left the Cabinet in 2011, Chee served as Chief Executive of the Energy Market Authority from 9 May 2011 to 1 April 2015. On 1 December 2014, he was appointed Second Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Political career
On 11 August 2015, Mr Chee resigned from the Administrative Service to stand for the General Election. Two years prior to GE2015, he had been spotted at grassroots events in Bishan–Toa Payoh and Marine Parade GRCs. On Nomination Day, Mr Chee's fist clenching and chest thumping action, in response to hecklers, shocked a few observers, whilst amusing others. Asked about the incident, Chee said, “I’m new to this, so there’s much for me to learn. I’ll certainly try to improve.” Chee was part of the team of five led by Minister for DefenceNg Eng Hen that won 73.59 percent of the votes in the Bishan–Toa Payoh GRC. On 1 October 2015, Mr Chee was appointed Minister of State for Health and Communications and Information. In 2016 Mr Chee appeared in TV Drama Eat Already? promoting healthy eating diets. On 1 May 2017, Mr Chee was promoted to Senior Minister of State for both Ministries. On 9 November 2017, Chee took to Facebook alleging NCMP Leon Perera had made false accusations on Mediacorp of making partisan edits on the video of Parliamentary debate on Presidential Elections Bill in February. In response, Leon rejected his claim and stated that his questions were about the ownership of the copyright to Parliamentary video footage and why Parliamentary video live feed cannot be made available as it is in many other countries. Leon Perera later apologised in Parliament. On 10 March 2018, Mr Chee was one of a number of PAP members who responded to Sylvia Lim over her remark that the government had intended to raise GST in the current term but backtracked due to negative public reaction. He chided the Workers' Party for using this issue to discredit the PAP government, saying that it was an attack on its integrity and not responding as strongly as they did would imply that the government is dishonest. Lim acknowledged that she "may have been wrong". On 24 March 2018, it was announced that Mr Chee will move to Senior Minister of State for Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Education. Chee and team remained representatives for Bishan–Toa Payoh GRC in the 2020 Singaporean general election, garnering 67.26% of the valid votes.
