The following is a snippet from Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Chee Soon Juan’s Speech at the Bukit Batok rally on May 3.
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“Now the head of HSBC said the financial realities…make retirement impossible for Singaporeans. And yet, and yet because of the CPF scheme we are the biggest savers in the world in terms of our retirement.
How is it that despite this, we don’t have enough to retire on? What went wrong?
I tell you what went wrong.
The Government has driven us to use our CPF money to buy our HDB flats. it then jacks up HDB prices so that we have to use more, and more of our CPF to buy our homes.
Now what once belonged to you in your CPF accounts, has now gone to the Government.
The Government then takes these funds and goes around the world to invest them. Now with hundreds of billions of dollars at its disposal, the world will roll out its red carpet.
But remember, this is not the Government’s money.
It’s your money.
<…>Remember, the CPF money is our money. the PAP is not doing us a favour by giving it back to us.”
