Minister Tan: Please stop treating us like morons! Open letter

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Minister Tan Chuan Jin appears not to have understood Singaporeans’ concerns about the CPF system in “The truth about our CPF and the Minimum Sum”.

As can be seen, the government is not interested to engage stakeholders. Whether a policy has caused tremendous suffering to citizens matters little to ministers as CPF is loose change to them. Tan has only attempted to convince CPF members to continue allowing the government to use OUR CPF retirement savings for investments until we are 6 feet under.

Two issues which most members take with the government. The first is the government does not have the right to decide for us on an issue as important as using our retirement savings till we are dead. Second, if the government wants to regain citizens’ trust, it must be transparent and not insist that we take the government’s word at face value. The longer the PAP government procrastinate in showing us where the money is, the more trust will be lost.

I will rebut Tan point by point:

Tan: “Let me state that the CPF is put in place to help Singaporeans have peace of mind when it comes to their retirement years”.

It appears that an increasing number of Singaporeans are not having any peace of mind with our money taken away.
The people did not beg the PAP to take our money and put in place to help us gain peace of mind. An issue as important as this requires a referendum. It is strange that where money is concerned, the PAP suddenly has all the initiative to ‘help’ us. Or is it helping themselves to OUR money. When the needy went on their knees for help, the PAP asked if they wanted “3 meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant”. Question: How does one have peace of mind when a big chunk of retirement savings have been taken away, untouchable for 10 years and then paid in miserable installments?

CPF helps us retire

The obvious question is how is CPF helping us to retire when only 1 in 8 meet the Minimum Sum? For those who cannot meet the MS, the CPF will release a token sum of $5,000. Tan should explain how this amount helps. I think with such an amount, members really have to eat grass.

Tan: “We make sure that this CPF account grows at a reasonable interest rate without risk”.

CPF members have been paid between 2.5% to 4% for a decade. Our MS was $84,500 in 2004 and will be $155,000 in July. This works out to an annual rate increase of 6%.
This simply means that since a decade ago, our CPF has been increasing at a much slower rate than the MS increase; we are able to draw lesser amounts every year. Tan should try to explain how CPF is helping us to retire by allowing us to draw less money every year.

Tan seems to think that “a reasonable interest rate” is one that’s below the inflation rate.

Money in your CPF account is your money

Considering all the conditions and arbitrary policy tweaks, the above statement cannot be true. If CPF is MY money, why am I http://likedatosocanmeh.wordpress.co...parency-issue/


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