Raising Retirement Age

The majority of Singaporeans and permanent residents aged 50 and above support raising the re-employment and retirement ages, according to a survey by the PAP Seniors Group and National Trades Union Congress U Women and Family.[1]

Why would anyone be surprised?

Before an eligible employee of an employer attains the specified age, the employer must offer re‑employment to that employee. The employer’s obligation to re‑employ that employee begins from the time that employee attains the specified age, until that employee attains the employee’s prescribed re-employment age.[2][3][4][5]

An eligible employee may retire or be retired, if he or she does not wish to be employed by his or her employer on or after the date the employee attains the specified age.

In other words, an eligible employee has the right but not the obligation to be re-employed on or after the date the employee attains the specified age.

Why wouldn't an employee want the prescribed retirement age to be extended?

In some other countries, people start receiving their pensions on reaching their retirement age. That's why raising the retirement age is met with protests.

Here, raising the prescribed retirement age does not affect the age at which a Central Provident Fund member can withdraw his excess CPF moneys.[6]

Neither does it affect the age at which an automatically-included CPF Lifelong Income Scheme member can start receiving payouts.[7]

Raising the retirement age may affect younger members of Supplementary Retirement Scheme: half the withdrawals from their SRS accounts are deemed to be income chargeable to tax only after they have attained the prescribed minimum retirement age prevailing at the time when they made their first contribution to their SRS accounts. Most people 50 years of age and older would already have locked in the minimum retirement age.[8]

The survey seems to be a waste of resources.

Notes

1. Most Singaporeans aged 50 and above support raising re-employment and retirement age: Survey (The Straits Times, 24 Sep 2023).

2. Retirement and Re-employment Act 1993 (2020 Revised Edition).

3. An eligible employee means an employee born on or after 1 July 1952 and the employer assesses the employee as having at least satisfactory work performance and being medically fit to continue working.

4. An employee's specified age means the higher of his prescribed minimum retirement age (63 years of age with effect from 1 July 2022) and the retirement age stated in the employee's contract of service.

5. The prescribed re-employment age for employees is currently 68 years of age.

6. 55 years of age (section 15(2)(a) of the Central Provident Fund Act 1953 (2020 Revised Edition)).

7. An automatically-included CPF Life member can start receiving payouts any time from 65 years of age to 70 years of age and choose his or her CPF LIFE plan then. Otherwise, he or she will be placed on CPF LIFE Standard Plan and payouts will start at 70 years of age (When do I have to Choose My CPF LIFE Plan? CPF FAQs).

8. Clause 10G(3)(b) of the Income Tax Act 1947 (2020 Revised Edition).

Political Ambush

A surreptitiously recorded video of Mr Leon Perera stroking the hand of Ms Nicole Seah in a seemingly intimate manner came into the public realm in the morning of 17 July 2023.

To recap.

Mr Perera was one of The Workers' Party Members of Parliament for Aljunied GRC and a member of WP's Central Executive Committee.

Ms Seah was also a member of WP's Central Executive Committee and in WP's team that narrowly lost in the East Coast GRC in the 2020 General Elections. She was considered by many to be a rising star in not just WP but also national politics.

Both Mr Perera and Ms Seah are married to other people.

According to WP's Secretary-General Pritam Singh, both Mr Perera and Ms Seah admitted their affair, which started after the 2020 GE. but said that it had stopped some time ago. They had previously denied any affair after Mr Perera's driver alleged that they were meeting very often at restaurants and hotels and had been seen hugging each other and holding hands.[1]

By 19 July 2023, Mr Perera and Ms Seah had resigned from WP. Mr Singh said, “The Constitution of WP requires candidates to be honest and frank in their dealings with the party and the people of Singapore. Leon’s conduct and not being truthful when asked by the party leadership about the allegations fell short of the standards expected of WP MPs. This is unacceptable. Had he not offered his resignation, I would have recommended to the CEC that he be expelled from the party.”[2]

Nothing in Singapore law requires any MP to resign because of an extramarital affair.

Why is the video significant?

Recorded more than a year ago, it was not made public until mere hours before Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's press conference announcing the resignations from the People's Action Party and Parliament of Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-jin and PAP Member of Parliament Cheng Li Hui. Mr Tan (who is married) and Ms Cheng (who is single) had continued their affair despite their being counselled by PM Lee earlier in 2023.

Was the timing of the release of the video a coincidence?

Or was it timed to soften the impact of Mr Tan's extramarital affair on the ruling People's Action Party?

When did the person(s) who had, or had access to, the video originally intend to make it public? A damaging moment might be at the next general election just after nominations had closed. As WP would be unable to change its slate of candidates, it could spell electoral doom for WP in one or more GRCs.

Are there matters that certain person(s) are holding in abeyance, waiting to politically ambush WP's (or any other opposition party's) candidates at the next general election?

Notes

1. WP’s Leon Perera, Nicole Seah resign over extramarital affair which started after GE2020 (The Straits Times, 19 July 2023).

2. Ibid.

Deprived of Their Right to Vote

As many as 1,093 Singaporeans informed the Elections Department Singapore ("ELD", a department under the Prime Minister's Office) during the 2023 Presidential Election ("PE") that their names were not in the register of electors, even though they had last voted in the 2020 General Election ("GE").[1]

In its earlier press release on 24 August 2023, ELD had stated that 200 Singaporeans had informed ELD that they had been wrongly struck off from the register of electors following the issuance of the Writ of Election on 11 August 2023.

Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister-in-charge of the Public Service, said in Parliament on 19 September, “For context, this number [1,093] averages one voter per polling station which had on average 2,400 registered voters in GE2020."

Mr Chan misses the point: one citizen wrongly omitted from the register of electors is one too many.

Mr Chan added, "I just want to assure the public that ELD has gone through the records, and while there is a margin of error, [it] is nowhere to the extent that you will call into question any of the election results that we have in recent memory.”[2]

Mr Chan misses the point again. Presidential and parliamentary elections are compulsory in Singapore. When ELD omits an elector from the register of electors, it deprives that citizen from exercising his or her democratic right to vote regardless of whether that one vote makes any difference in the result. Otherwise, a citizen who didn't vote in an election won't have to pay a fee to reinstate himself or herself in the register of electors.

Notes

1. Under the law, a citizen's name is removed from the register of electors if he or she fails to cast his or her vote in the last presidential or parliamentary election.

2. The point in this paragraph was not in ELD's Oral Reply to Parliamentary Questions on the Removal of Names from the Registers of Electors Eligible to Vote at Presidential Election 2023 and Technical Issues with Electronic Voter Registration System during Presidential Election 2023 (19 September 2023). It was reported, however, in Over 1,000 voters wrongly taken off voter rolls in PE 2023, due to human errors in GE 2020 (TODAY, 19 September 2023).

Meritocracy?

In his speech at the farewell ceremony for President Halimah Yacob on 13 September 2023 at the Istana, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that she showed that Singapore's meritocratic system worked in that every Singaporean could achieve his or her aspirations, regardless of race, language, or religion, and regardless of family background or station in life.

Regardless of race?

The 2016 Presidential election was reserved for Malays; no person of any other race could participate.

Regardless of station in life?

Clause 19 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore states that no person shall be elected as President unless he or she is qualified for election in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

Mr George Goh Ching Wah was ruled ineligible to contest the 2023 election.

Mr Mohamed Salleh Marican and Mr Farid Khan were ruled ineligible to contest the 2017 election.