excerpted from ‘Diary of a Singaporean Mind‘:
Looking at CPF from the other side…[Link]
This is one of the significant responsibilities in MOM. DPM and myself spend a fair bit of time on this, and rightfully so. Sometimes, I wonder if my job would be easier if we just let people withdraw their CPF totally.
(It is their money and earlier promised to them for withdrawal at age 55. I agree early withdrawal would create other practical problems. But shouldn’t the PAP have pursued a course of action to fulfil that earlier pronmise?…we will get to that a little later).
It would make things easier…for awhile. But it would be wrong.
Life expectancy is going up to 82 and beyond. One is likely to live for a good 20 years after retirement. There is a strong likelihood that many may not have saved enough.
(Here again we fall into this trap in thinking. Just like the PAP justifying the large foreign influx using low fertility rates. A large part of the inadequacy is caused by liberalisation of CPF for housing, and money set aside Medisave programs so that the govt can lower its own expenditure on health care (lowest in the developed world as a % of total expenditure). If CPF is kept strictly as a provident fund and HDB live up to its mandate is to provide affordable housing without touching the CPF, Singaporeans would have a better retirement if public housing is more reasonable priced and does not drain our CPF which is kept strictly for retirement…
As a citizen, I did not really bother too much trying to understand the CPF construct. (Okay, generals in the SAF are well paid so they don’t have to worry about CPF).
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read the entire article HERE.
