Singaporeans First unveils CEC

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

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/...tml?cid=twtcna

Quote:

SINGAPORE: Opposition political party Singaporeans First (SingFirst) - which was set up less than a year ago - unveiled a 12-member Central Executive Committee (CEC) on Sunday (Mar 22) at a dinner attended by representatives from several other opposition parties including the Workers' Party, Singapore People's Party, Singapore Democratic Party and the Reform Party.

The SingFirst CEC continues to be led by chairman Ang Yong Guan, a psychiatrist and retired army officer, as well as secretary-general Tan Jee Say, a former presidential candidate and ex-civil servant.

The pair are joined by five members of the previous CEC - retired army officer Tan Peng Ann, architect Winston Lim, chemist David Foo, retired engineer Michael Chia and head of a medical company David Tan - and five new members - entrepreneur Mohamed Randy Ashmooni, sales manager Leow Pei Shan, retired police officer Sukhdev Singh Gill, HR professional Patrick Heng and IT professional Gregory Wong.

Three members of the previous 10-member CEC have stepped down – director of an education company Loke Pak Hoe, architect Fatimah Akhthar and communications professional Fahmi Rais.

Apart from introducing the people who would lead the party, SingFirst also unveiled the key policies that the party will campaign on at the next General Election.

Among them, SingFirst is proposing to spend an additional S$6 billion a year - over and above what the government is spending - to tackle what it described as “rising inequality”, funded from the net investment returns (NIR). The NIR allows the government to spend up to 50 per cent of expected long-term real returns on its net assets managed by the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and more recently Temasek Holdings.

SingFirst said the money will be spent to provide free education, higher subsidised child care and higher transport subsidies, among other things. The biggest ticket item is an old-age pension of S$300 a month for 600,000 senior citizens. The party also wants to phase out the Goods and Services Taxes (GST) by increasing taxes on higher income individuals.

SingFirst declined to reveal where it plans to contest at the next general election. But the party has a team of five “campaign managers” walking the ground at Marine Parade GRC. “This will allow SingFirst to develop a template and model on what needs to be done for an effective campaign with strategies including door-to-door visits. We will use the template to cover other GRCs as and when required,” it said.

“Our goal is regime change, not just checks and balances,” added the opposition party.

- CNA/dl



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