SDP - Aug 2014 - We said this 15 years ago...

Don't let the PAP retain your CPF savings
September 2000

Imagine waking up one morning and finding out that your bank has decided to retain your savings. It tells you that it is doing this for your own good.

It also tells you that you can withdraw a certain amount when you retire and the rest will be given to you in small monthly instalments until you die or when the money runs out whichever comes first.

Impossible you say? Well, it's already happening. The bank is the CPF and the banker is the PAP Government. Under the innocently named Minimum Sum Scheme, the PAP has decided it will withhold $80,000 for every person's CPF account.

From the age of 60, your savings will be disbursed to you in monthly instalments of about $200.

How are retirees going to survive on $200 a month?

But why is the Government introducing this scheme in the first place? Because, according to the PAP, we will squander away our savings if we are given all of it back.

This is utter rubbish. The CPF is our money and we will manage it the way we see fit.

No, the real reason for the retention is that the CPF is an excellent source of revenue for the Government.

In the beginning, the PAP said that Singaporeans had to save for our old age and passed a law to deduct 40% of our wages for the CPF. At that time, it assured us that we would be able to get our money back because this is a form of savings and not taxes.

But now the Government makes a U-turn and passes a law to withhold our savings. This is outrageous, not to mention immoral, because any bank which tries to do this will meet with lawsuits from its customers.

Furthermore, the amount of $80,000 is not fixed. Any time the Government so decides to up the $80,000 sum it can do so without any opposition. In fact, there are plans to raise the amount by another $30,000.

Singaporeans thought that by voting for the PAP in the last GE (1997) you stood to benefit from HDB upgrading programmes. Many are coming to realise that what you gain on the one hand, you've lost much more on the other because of the Minimum Sum Scheme.

The Government doesn't even bother to tell us how and where it invests our money. It loses billions of CPF dollars in failed investment in Suzhou, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam, US, etc. and then turns around and tells that we will squander our money away.

Singaporeans, don't let the PAP get away with it. It is our CPF money and the PAP has no right to withhold it. Now is the time to do something about it. Stand up for your rights.

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