January 13, 2010
PAP MP Lee Bee Wah who was famous for her “indiscreet” public remarks, may have hit another raw nerve among Singaporeans again by questioning the Employment Assistance Payment (EAP) to help elderly workers who just left their jobs.
The EAP is intended to help workers tide over the period while they are looking for alternative employment or attending courses. While Mr Gan did not reveal the range of EAP amounts, a previously cited figure was between three and six months.
In a desperate bid to enourage employers to offer re-employment to retiring workers, the Manpower Ministry has come up with a series of guidelines to ensure that they re-hire workers who are medically fit and whose performance is up to mark.
Though Singapore is the second richest country in Asia after Japan and its two sovereign wealth funds can afford to lose billions of dollars of national reserves in risky overseas investments, its citizens enjoy few social welfare benefits from the state.
All Singaporeans have to contribute 20 per cent of their monthly income to a compulsory nationwide pension scheme called Central Provident Fund or CPF in short. However, with their CPF being depleted to pay for over-priced public housing, many of them have hardly sufficient savings left in their twilight years.
As such, elderly Singaporeans have to continue working well beyond their retirement age to support themselves as the ruling party will not help them in anyway. In fact, its leaders have been exhorting Singaporeans to “work as long as they can” (till they drop dead)
Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong told parliament yesterday that a minimum and maximum sum will be stipulated for the EAP to ensure “it is not too little or too large”.
He was responding to Ms Lee Bee Wah who “had wondered if such a payment would create financial hardship, especially for smaller firms.”
Ms Lee did not elaborate more on how small firms will be affected by the EAP. It appears she is not too interested if Singapore workers are able to support themselves financially after they retire.
Actually, it is understandable that Ms Lee is unable to empathize with elderly Singaporeans since she is a Malaysian by birth and Malaysians probably have an easier time than Singaporeans due to their relative lower cost of living which explains why quite a number of Malaysians choose to remain as a Singapore PR only and decline to take up citizenship.
It is beyond doubt now that PAP must be removed.
Voting is private and confidential. Please remain silent!!! That Lee Bee Wah is a pain in the throat for PAP, i go ask my Uncle Lee to remove her. She thinks politics is like wet market, can just shout here and there and thing get settled.
Anyway, she is a PAP scapegoat set up for oppositions to focus on and hopefully, this may help oppositions to miss out the others.