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Media
release: CPF annuity proposal a ploy, not solution
24
Aug 07
The latest move by the PAP Government to force
Singaporeans to buy annuities is yet another despicable attempt
to withhold the people’s hard-earned CPF savings.
Already
the Minimum Sum Scheme allows the Government to retain the
citizens' retirement funds. Now the PAP wants to compel
Singaporeans to buy annuity, making it even harder for them to
survive their retirement years.
The annuity proposal is
not a solution. It is a ploy. A ploy thought up by the PAP
Government to strengthen its hold on CPF funds – funds that
it then uses for its business ventures which are not transparent
or accountable.
Worse, the ministers then use these
businesses to tout their commercial prowess and demand that they
be paid million-dollar salaries.
Let us be absolutely
clear: The fact that Singaporeans do not and will not have enough
funds to retire on is not because they are bad managers of their
money and therefore need yet more Government intervention and
supervision.
The fact that study after study shows
Singaporeans having the highest savings rate in the world and yet
retire as paupers point to one and only one conclusion: That
their plight is a result of willful mismanagement of this
Government.
The problem of insufficient retirement funds
stems from the glaring fact that HDB flats are vacuuming up CPF
savings.
For the overwhelming majority of the people who
cannot afford private property, the HDB is the only means of
housing. With the prices of the flats at current levels
Singaporeans have had no choice but to use their retirement
savings to pay for the monthly leases.
Worse, like most
other public matters in this country, the cost of building the
flats are kept secret. Then when the PAP wants to upgrade the
flats and use them as threats during elections, they make the
people dip more into their CPF to pay for the refurbishment.
Is
it a surprise then that Singaporeans have little to live on when
they retire?
This is a recurring nightmare for
Singaporeans. The people are forced to bear the brunt of
“solutions” to problems created by the PAP
Government, problems that are wholly avoidable if not for the
greed and short-sightedness of this Government.
The
Stop-At-Two policy is another example where for years the
Government introduced draconian measures to curtail the
reproductive rate of the population only to discover that
Singaporeans were not replacing themselves adequately. The
“solution”? The Foreign Talent Policy.
The
measure has flooded society with foreign workers and forced
locals to compete with them for unconscionably low wages.
Such
Government-say-people-do-with-no-questions-asked nonsense must
stop. And the only way to stop it is for Singaporeans to exercise
their freedoms of speech and assembly to send an unmistakable
message to the PAP that they refuse to be fleeced and milked any
longer.
Singaporeans must remember that democracy makes
good economic sense, that is, without our political rights, there
can be no economic rights.
Chee Soon
Juan
Secretary-General
Singapore Democratic Party
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