Re: Singapore DISCRIMINATES against its own citizens by not returning their CPF savin
People in high authority should have even higher standards of MORAL Leadership.
Instead, he has led the country stray from the path of righteousness and JUSTICE.
What is the role of the Prime Minister, especially one who had already collected his CPF Savings from the Singapore CPF Board?
The NZ Prime Minister is the head of the National Party that rules New Zealand. The role of a leader of the country is to set the tone of the country i.e. to set a good example. The NZ Human Rights Act 1993 stated DISCRIMINATION is UNLAWFUL, whether it is done DIRECTLY or INDIRECTLY.
The fact that the Chief Executive of the NZ Ministry of Social Development discriminates against ONLY Singapore Citizens is fundamentally unlawful. The form devised by the MSD to make Singaporeans send to the CPF Board is discriminatory as it affects ONLY one nationality.
Singapore Citizens, already DISCRIMINATED by their own government, suffer a 100% TAX in NZ on their CPF SAVINGS refunded MONTHLY by the CPF Board. The MSD in participating with the Singapore government’s discrimination is guilty of INDIRECT DISCRIMINATION under NZ’s Human Rights Act 1993.
The fact that the NZ PM and all NZ citizens who had worked in Singapore and collected their CPF Savings in FULL and TAX-FREE when they left Singapore, and are not affected by being paid their full pension by MSD, is proof of DISCRIMINATION against Nationality again under your own Human Rights Act 1993.
The fact that Malaysian Permanent Residents in NZ receive their FULL Pension Entitlement, as well as all other nationalities who had worked in Singapore and collected their CPF Savings, is proof of Discrimination against Singapore Citizens who are also NZ Permanent Residents.
The fact that MSD pays out the full NZ Pension to ex-Singaporeans who have taken NZ Citizenship and collected their CPF Savings in full, and deducts the monthly CPF Refunds to Singapore Citizens who are Permanent Residents of NZ is DISCRIMINATORY.
Seven letters sent to the NZ Prime Minister appealing to his conscience as he had lived in Singapore, is well aware that the CPF is a SAVINGS SCHEME and had collected his TAX-FREE CPF Savings.
First letter
Dear Mr Key,
You have worked in Singapore and you know for certain that the CPF (Central Provident Fund) is not a pension fund but a ‘Kiwisaver’ Fund. In those days, you would have contributed approximately 20% of your salary and commissions and Merrill-Lynch would have contributed a similar amount. As you are not a Singapore Citizen, you were allowed to withdraw your remuneration, administered by the CPF Board when you left Singapore. Singapore Citizens are not allowed to withdraw their CPF savings unless they have a humongous amount exceeding the PAP government’s Minimum Sum.
Since January 2014, the fairly new unit formed by your government a couple of years ago, SPS_Testing, have harassed me and have obstinately insisted that the CPF is a pension fund, obviously for their own vested interests.
I have informed them to contact the Pensions Branch in Singapore if they do not believe that I do not receive any pension from the Singapore government but they insist the CPF Board is the correct authority. Then they want me to sign and send their poorly-constructed and loosely-worded form to the CPF Board and give them a copy.
Despite numerous email correspondence and a very tiring telephone conversation, where I explained the history of the CPF in Singapore and how Singapore Citizens cannot withdraw their forced savings (whereas Kiwisaver is voluntary), these so-called consultants have refused to understand and constantly harass me with reminders.
These ‘consultants’ also stated that the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development confirmed that the CPF is a pension fund under Section 70.
As the Chief Executive discriminates against a Singapore Citizen because of nationality and citizenship, I have made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission and to the Ombudsman.
Please explain to these consultants and the Chief Executive that the CPF is a Kiwisaver Fund and not a Pension Fund. Surely you could employ a more intelligent bunch of highly paid civil servants in a superfluous SPS_Testing unit?
Thank you and best wishes for 2015.
New Zealand should have higher ambitions than only to pretend to be a country of fairness and justice. It has to live up to the image it presents to the world.
Second letter
Dear Mr P….., (Executive Assistant – Correspondence Unit)
I will forward to you the correspondence between the SPS_Testing Unit and myself since January 2014.
They have just sent me a second reminder last week.
Third letter
Dear Sir,
The following are the correspondence (for the Minister of Senior Citizens) regarding the Singapore Central Provident Fund which is a compulsory Kiwisaver Fund and not a pension fund.
Your SPS_Testing consultants simply refuse to accept the truth and it is truly disappointing indeed.
Fourth letter
Dear Mr Key,
Your Minister for Senior Citizens have not bothered to reply to my letter of 29/3/15.
Yesterday’s article in the New Zealand Herald commented that “Key should show some spine” – as You know that the CPF is a compulsory savings fund like Kiwisaver, and that it is not a Pension Fund because you had a CPF account in Singapore in 1995.
Your SPS Testing Unit sent me a letter last week that they will stop my Super payments from 29/6/15 as the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social development ruled that the CPF is a deductible. If he cannot understand that the source of the CPF funds come from the employee/employer contributions and not from the Treasury like English and Australian pensioners, perhaps you should enlighten him.
As you know, all foreigners are allowed by the autocratic Singapore government to with draw their CPF monies except Singapore Citizens and this is in contravention of the UN Human Rights Act – discrimination against nationality.
New Zealand’s standing in the rankings of Human Rights will be negatively affected when my case goes public in the press and the world wide web if you condone and rubber-stamp Singapore’s hijacking of Singapore citizens’ life-time savings in the CPF.
Please inform your Chief Executive to be honest and use common sense and justice, because the Singapore government has cheated me of my CPF and now the NZ government is doing the same.
Fifth letter
Dear Sir,
Further to my earlier letter that your Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Development will stop my pension payments on 29/6/15, I attach proof from the Singapore Embassy that I do not receive any pension from the government of Singapore (because there is no social security in Singapore).
Your people are therefore discriminating against my nationality in contravention of the Human Rights Act.
Sixth letter
Dear Mr Key,
I received a letter from Mr Rob Brown of MSD effectively saying BLACK is WHITE and WHITE IS BLACK i.e. a Singapore Government state-funded pension is not a deductible but a CPF SAVINGS SCHEME/Kiwisaver is a deductible.
You had referred referred my letters of 14/6/15 and 15/6/15 to the Minister for Senior Citizens who referred back to the Chief Executive of MSD, which to use the words of Ms Helen Clark in the Q & A programme, is “pointless bureaucracy” as you know for sure that the CPF is NOT State-funded and is a Kiwisaver-type SAVINGS Scheme.
If your people in MSD could read carefully the document from the Singapore Embassy, it clearly stated that I am “not a Singapore Government Pensioner and is not in receipt of Singapore Pension”. Do they not read the second part of the statement?
Your Chief executive calling CPF a pension does not make it a pension, just as calling Kiwisaver a pension also does not make it a pension.
As MSD discriminates against a Singapore Citizen because the Singapore government does not allow Singapore Citizens to draw out their CPF savings, but allows all other nationalities to withdraw their CPF, including your goodself and thousands of NZ Citizens/PRs who had worked in Singapore, I have made a complaint to the Singapore Embassy about the unlawful discrimination of Singaporean citizenship under the Human Rights Act.
I wonder how your MSD can call a Singapore Government state-funded pension a “government occupational pension and is not subject to a direct deduction by New Zealand” and a Kiwisaver-type savings scheme, fully funded by the employee and employer, NOT STATE-FUNDED, a deductible? Is this not saying BLACK IS WHITE and vice versa?
Your Chief Executive is determined to tarnish the good name of New Zealand as a FAIR and JUST country.
Seventh letter
An open letter to Mr John Key
Dear Mr Key,
I have written several letters to you on the CPF as you have worked in Singapore and had a CPF SAVINGS account. You are very well versed on this subject and could easily put a stop to the nonsense from the MSD and the Minister for Senior Citizens who did not bother to research on the subject but simply relied on the Chief Executive who is paid more than yourself, the leader of the country, which does not even make more sense.
By re-directing to your Ministerial colleagues who evidently have no diligence to know about the CPF, and the Chief Executive of MSD who has a vested interest, what does it reveal? I heard in the news that you went to Singapore at the invitation of the son of the dead dictator for Singapore’s National Day Celebrations, when thousands of Singaporeans went out of the country to neighbouring Malaysia as they were disgusted with the PAP for hijacking their CPF savings.
Despite the CPF Board stating that I do not receive any pension payments from them, your MSD people are stopping my superannuation entitlement on 26/8/15.
If you have a conscience, and can truly say the CPF is not a Kiwisaver-type savings scheme but a pension payment (as your unethical MSD people insist), I will truly admire you.
Finally, his reply
“As there is nothing to be gained by any correspondence on this matter, I am closing the correspondence.”
The NZ Prime Minister is certainly correct in saying that there is nothing to be gained anymore as he had already collected his CPF Savings in full from the Singapore CPF Board.
What do you think of this Great Leader? He preached tp the United Nations General Assembly last year during the Syrian refugee crisis, “we have got to do the right thing!”
Is he walking the TALK and doing the right thing?