What appears to be a humanitarian act to allow parents to make monthly CPF payout arrangements for special needs children may simply be just another facade to cover up for the groundswell discontent over CPF over the past few years. Sorry to say, and it seems as if the ruling regime is using special needs children as a shield behind which to hide when it comes to CPF.
Whatever the scheme is, nothing can cover for the hard truth that people's hard-earned monies are controlled by the PAP. When it first began, it started off as a kind scheme that aims to help people to save. CPF was taken in a positive light then. But it was during then, also when the PAP government was still governing along its original philosophy of seeing to the well-being of the people.
Today, with the massive losses at the 2008-2009 investments, the opacity over how the losses came about and how those losses were being managed by TH and GIC, and coinciding with the arbitrarily increased withdrawal age limits for CPF, one wonders what CPF really means now. Is CPF a scheme to help people save up for rainy days, or has it corrupted to a point of being just a massive golden goose for the PAP?
An example in North Korea. Back in late 1999s to early 2000s, the ruling regime was desparately short of hard cash. The typical North Koreans don't usually save their monies in the banks, which are state-controlled anyway. They prefer to keep their hard cash for the rainy days than to 'surrender' it to the banks. To entice the North Korean people to choke out their savings in the name of 'national good' (that mainly includes enriching the Army, the ruling regime and the Kim clan but not at all benefitting the country at large), the Pyongyang regime told the people to surrender their savings out of patriotism in exchange for 'People's Life Bonds'. The typical uninformed North Koreans responded positively to the call, only to realise till this day that those 'People's Life Bonds' are just useless pieces of paper. There is no improvement to their country and their lives, there is no recourse to getting the money back, criticising the regime will only invite a term in gulag or be shot. Practically, all these become a facade.
We Singaporeans are probably in a better situation. At least we don't get shot or thrown into jail for questioning CPF. However, I can't help but seeing today's distorted version of CPF as just another analogous example of the North Koreans' 'People's Life Bonds' scheme. The CPF numbers that appear on the statements are just numbers. But the question here really is: are we able to see that money if we insist upon it? Are those monies really there in the first place? Frankly, I don't wish to follow the footsteps of the North Koreans.
The only thing left to PAP now is, rather than seeking 'alternative measures' to placate the people of their CPF, to come clean on where our CPF monies are now, and to seek a review of the policy on its withdrawal by reinstating it to the original scheme.
Add a comment