LETTER: CPF Board refused to give statement of account to deceased's nominee

Hardwarezone Forum, 7 Jul 2014
My uncle passed away not too long ago, leaving behind my aunty and my two teenage cousins. He had been the sole breadwinner of the household so it hasn't been easy on my aunty who is still in grief and now has to support her two children by herself.
My uncle had named her as the sole nominee to his CPF money prior to his death. This means that upon his demise, his CPF savings now belonged to my aunty. When the money was paid out to her, we had hoped it would help somehow reduce her burden. It turned out that the money paid out was not very significant.
My aunty requested my help to write to CPF Board to ask for my uncle's last statement. I did but the request was rejected by them. They claimed that the statement was confidential information that they could not release. If my aunty wanted this info, she would have to get a court order first. She was very upset. I found out that a court order could cost a few thousand dollars!! Can you believe that? Full story

Snapshot: Singapore Government classifies income above $2600 as "Upper Income" in Medishield Life Premium Tabulation

Hardwarezone Forum, 27 Jun 2014


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OPINION: Mr Lim Swee Say’s statements on CPF do not make any sense

Sgpolitics.net, 24 Jun 2014
Firstly, Mr Lim said that people should use less of their CPF money when they are young, and they should also try to defer drawing down their CPF when they reach the age of 55. These statements were made in BOTH the original press interview as well as the clarification that he later sent to the media (see here).
However, Mr Lim also asserts that the CPF is for housing, healthcare and education, in addition to serving retirement needs. He makes this assertion in the context of assuring Singaporeans that “CPF is your money“. Again, this point is repeated in BOTH the media interview as well as his subsequent clarification.
Why does this not make sense? If you want citizens to save more CPF money for retirement, then you should not be asking them to spend the CPF on so many needs including housing, healthcare and education simultaneously.
In other words, the CPF should NOT be turned into an escrow account to ensure that all Singaporeans pay for their expensive houses and medical bills from their own retirement savings, and in so doing relieve the state of the burden of caring for its citizen.  Full story

Lady who kept making rude gesture at 76-year-old speaker in Hri Kumer's CPF dialogue event has been identified as a PAP grassroots leader - report

The Real Singapore, 15 Jun 2014

PAP MP Hri Kumar's CPF dialogue event had drawn a lot of online attention, particularly since a video of a 76 year old's pleas to Hri Kumar was recorded and shared widely online.
However, netizens have also noticed one particularly rude lady in the audience, dressed in a white cheongsam, who kept trying to stop the 76 year old aunty from talking and was motioning to organisers to remove her from the microphone.
In the video, she can be seen gesturing at 5:33, shaking her head and moving her hands as if the outspoken lady is mad.
She was rudely interrupting and repeating "1 minute" "1 minute", apparently referring to the 1 minute time limit that was imposed on questions at the dialogue.
It turns out that the disruptive lady is actually an active PAP grassroots member and netizens have shown their disgust for her rude actions. Full story

VIDEO: PAP MP Hri Kumar's response to 76-year-old retiree who wants her CPF - "You know the rules, you made your decision, then you have to live with the choices you made"

Comment: Did I just heard Hri Kumar says (@ 0:34) that most people prefer to keep their money in the CPF because it pays higher interest rate?

Youtube.com, 14 Jun 2014


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VIDEO: 76-year-old lady tearfully begged Hri Kumar in a public forum to help get her CPF money back as PAP grassroots volunteers tried to shut her up

VIDEO: 76-year-old lady tearfully begged Hri Kumar in a public forum to help get her CPF money back as PAP grassroots volunteers tried to shut her up

Post by The Real Singapore.

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Related:

1. 76 years old lady begged Hri Kumar to help her get CPF money back - The Online Citizen
2. Old lady begs Hri Kumar to get her CPF money back - TR Emeritus

Video uploaded to Liveleak:



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OPINION: 58-year-old man speaks from the heart about CPF minimum sum

Hardwarezone Forum, 12 Jun 2014


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VIDEO: Roy Ngerng's Speech @ Hong Lim Park - The speech that PM Lee and his lawyers will be scrutinizing every word he says

Youtube.com, 7 Jun 2014

An estimated crowd of 6000 people attended the CPF protest at Hong Lim Park on Saturday - report

Yahoo! News Singapore, 7 Jun 2014
Thousands of Singaporeans attended the “Return Our CPF” protest held at Hong Lim Park on Saturday, calling for greater transparency and flexibility in the CPF system.
By 5pm, more than 2,000 dotted the green in the area surrounding the stage, with scores more hiding from the sun in the surrounding shaded footpaths, field areas and even a nearby overhead bridge. Han estimated at the close of the protest at about 6:30pm that the crowd size had grown to 6,000.
"Singaporeans, there are 6,000 people here today," said the 22-year-old, addressing the crowd from on stage. Adding in Mandarin that she is organising another CPF-related protest next month, Han asked those present to bring more friends with them, to take the numbers up to 10,000. Full story

Snapshot: Huge turnout at Hong Lim Park for #ReturnOurCPF rally despite the scorching weather

Hardwarezone Forum, 7 Jun 2014










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2,000 people expected to brave the weather and attend the #ReturnOurCPF rally at Hong Lim Park on Saturday (7 Jun, 4pm)

Yahoo! News Singapore, 2 Jun 2014
Up to 2,000 people are expected to attend the #ReturnOurCPF protest happening on Saturday at Hong Lim Park, according to sole organiser Han Hui Hui during a press conference on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old activist and blogger also announced that human rights lawyer M Ravi, Reform Party member Prabu Ramachandran and former Singapore Democratic Party member Vincent Wijeysingha will also be speaking at the event, which aims to gather support for a more "transparent" and "accountable" Central Provident Fund (CPF) system.
Also scheduled to take to the podium are bloggers like statistician Leong Sze Hian and “The Heart Truths”’ Roy Ngerng against whom Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has filed a defamation suit for statements alleging “criminal misappropriation” in relation to Singaporeans’ CPF savings. Full story

Kenneth Jeyaretnam debunk Temasek's denial of being linked to rise in CPF minimum sum

Rethinking the Rice Bowl, 5 Jun 2014
In an extraordinary turn of events the State Times published a letter in its Forum page yesterday from Temasek Holdings. It seems that last Saturday ST published an article (“Ways to improve CPF”) which quoted an unnamed person as saying he suspected the Central Provident Fund Minimum Sum was raised “because Temasek or GIC lost money overseas”. ( See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/premium/forum-letters/story/temasek-doesnt-invest-or-manage-cpf-savings-20140604#sthash.jRLqDrka.dpuf)
Temasek wrote their letter in response to that comment and presumably to deny that rumour. I say it is extraordinary because not only does it fail to prove that CPF monies do not help to finance, even indirectly, the government’s injections of capital into Temasek, but a large part of the letter is simply a setting out of current government CPF policy and an explanation of the PAP’s stated reasons for increasing the minimum sum. You know, the one about increased life expectancy blah blah. Full story

OPINION: CPF Life - What Sunday Times left out

Atans1.wordpress.com, 5 Jun 2014
There is a provision in the law governing the CPF Life Plans which states that payouts are contingent on the Plans being solvent. This is because premiums that are paid in to get the annuities are pooled and collectively invested. If the plan you chose doesn’t have enough money to pay out, you die. This is unlike the [Minimum Sum] scheme, where account holders are legally entitled to the monies in their CPF accounts …
(http://atans1.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/best-cpf-life-plan/)
The government has said the provision on solvency is only a precaution unlikely ever to be used. If so, why have it? This is a peace of mind issue. It was Gan who made this assurance when he was MoM.
He should have told us the fact that the govt refuses to “protect” CPF Lifers from fund failure, despite CPF Lifers having to participate.
If one cannot trust a SPH journalist to give us the relevant facts on a non-political issue, how can we rely on any SPH (and MediaCorp journalist, for that matter) to analyse or report political issues? Full story

OPINION: What Do You Really Mean By "The CPF Is Safe"?

Asingaporean.blogspot.sg, 29 May 2014
The CPF is NEVER safe on a day when:
1) The government refused to be transparent and provide relevant information freely and rightfully to the people.
2) The same people with track records of a monkey continues to handle investments funded by public money and be made accountable for their mistakes.
3) The CPF board continues to shift their goal posts as and when they need it without consulting and reaching a fair consensus by their stakeholders.
The people should never rest assured and continue to be fearful until the day these change to an acceptable and ethical level. Full story

OPINION: Can You Trust PAP With Your CPF Money?

Singaporealternative.blogspot.sg, 1 Jun 2014
There are already quite a lot of articles written by bloggers, Facebook users and internet forummers on this CPF issue. We are beginning to converge to agree on a few fundamental points:
1) Nobody in his right mind would have put money into CPF for its promise of "guaranteed" return of a meager 2.5% to 4% when it could just change the rules on when and how much you could draw your own money anyhow they like without consulting us. If CPF is not compulsory, I don't think anyone with a right mind would want to RISK their money like that.
2) Government guarantee doesn't mean RISK FREE. Yes, please get this right. The only reason why government can give guarantee to CPF is because if everything fails, it can just print money to repay us. However, that will create hyper inflation that will practically devalue our CPF money altogether. So it is NEVER risk free even when it is guaranteed.
3) Returns to our CPF are really understated. We could have invested DIRECTLY into GIC or Temasek Holdings to earn higher returns, instead of going through the government which practically end up making use of our CPF as "National Reserves", invest in GIC and make profits out of these investment. In essence, we have been shortchanged in our CPF returns no matter how we look at it. GIC gave much higher annualized returns of 6.5% to 8.8% for their 20 year and 10 year span. Why are we paid only 2.5% and 4% only? This is in fact a very heavy implicit tax applied on our CPF money's potential returns. i.e. more than 50% implicit tax! Full story

Presidential candidate Dr Tan Cheng Bock weighs in on public anger over recent CPF changes by the Government

Facebook.com/TanChengBock, 28 May 2014


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VIDEO: CPF - Can See, But Cannot Touch

This video was made in 2009....



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OPINION: Temasek doesn’t really make 16%, and why your CPF isn't really safe

Andyxianwong.wordpress.com
It is completely inconceivable that Temasek has achieved the returns it claims through ordinary open market investment performance. Any attempt to attribute these returns to particularly excellent investment decisions by the Prime Minister’s wife is beyond ludicrous. Professor Balding has written on a few occasions about how out of kilter the numbers claimed by Temasek look when compared to pretty much every other index, benchmark or verifiable institutional investor (of which there are plenty).
You may be wondering, if Temasek’s investments don’t make such great returns, where do the funds come from to pay back the money borrowed from our CPF accounts? The answer, obviously, is that it doesn’t come from anywhere. Obviously, as we are reminded every year, the CPF money is not getting paid back. Borrowers don’t just default on their borrowings, and unilaterally restructure their debts for no reason. Yet this is what happens every year when the minimum sum is increased, and when the retirement age is increased. A couple more tricks exist that governments can use to make inconvenient debts go away. Full story

OPINION: Think CPF Will Cover Your Home Loan? You’ll Rethink That Idea After Reading This

Yahoo! Finance Singapore, 20 May 2014
The CPF Valuation Limit (VL) Letter
Before you reach your VL limit, CPF will send a letter at least three months before you reach your VL limit.
Don’t ignore it!
That letter comes with one VERY important message:

You won’t be able to use your OA to service your mortgage UNLESS you set aside HALF the cash component of the Minimum Sum Scheme (MS), which is $74,000 (MS is $148,000) currently.

If you already have the MS set aside, you can take advantage of the AHWL. If not, you’ll need to start paying your mortgage repayments with cash until you do. Full story

PAP Government raised CPF minimum sum by 4.73 percent to S$155,000 wef 1st July 2014 to account for inflation

Question: Singapore's actual annual inflation rate averages 6% for the past five years?

The Online Citizen, 8 May 2014
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has just announced that the minimum sum that will apply to CPF members who turn 55 between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2015 will be increased to $155,000 from $148,000. This will be set aside in their Retirement Account using savings from their Special, and then Ordinary Accounts. (press release)
The Minimum Sum for CPF members who turn 55 before 1 July 2014 remains unchanged.
The ministry explains that the increase in the minimum sum is to maintain its real value over time, accounting for inflation.
Along with the change in the minimum sum, from 1 July 2014:
The Medisave Minimum Sum will be raised to $43,500 from $40,500. A member will need to have this amount in his Medisave Account and also meet the CPF Minimum Sum before excess funds can be withdrawn.
The Medisave Contribution Ceiling will be increased correspondingly to $48,500, from $45,500. This is the maximum balance a member can have in his Medisave Account. Link

Related:
PAP's ingenious scheme to hold your CPF money after your demise