People’s Voice Party kickstarts #AbolishCECA campaign

In line with its commitment to push for the abolishment of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), People’s Voice Party (PV) has initiated the #AbolishCECA campaign.

Highlighting that #AbolishCECA is a non-partisan project, PV in a statement on Wednesday (26 August) said that the campaign kicks off at 8pm tonight.

An online petition will be published on PV’s Facebook page, which will be supplemented by physical gatherings across Singapore over the next few weeks for those interested in signing the petition in person.

PV chief Lim Tean will also be putting up a video on the campaign on Sunday (30 August) on YouTube and Facebook.

In a Facebook post today, Mr Lim called on members of the public to sign up as volunteers “regardless of political affiliation”.

“#AbolishCECA. Sign the petition simply by typing your name in the comment section to this post.

“We will deliver the petition to Parliament in 4 weeks. Will you join us?” he wrote.

CECA, or the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement in full, is a free trade agreement between Singapore and India signed around 15 years ago.

The agreement facilitates freer movement of Indian national professionals in sectors such as technology, medicine, engineering and finance into Singapore. Double taxation and tariff barriers are lifted under CECA.

PV in its statement earlier said that the campaign will entail “several new innovations” to further amplify the voices of Singaporeans on CECA “which the PAP government has refused to listen to”.

“We have arranged for various events over the next few weeks using a multi-platform approach to gather the opinions and views of Singaporeans across all demographics,” said the party.

“People’s Voice strongly believes that CECA needs to be abolished and that Parliament needs to take DECISIVE action swiftly to do so, rather than [to] continue with this disastrous CECA treaty which has cost many Singaporeans their livelihoods and continues to do so,” PV urged.