Goh Chok Tong thanks “mighty reserves” for “mighty” Resilience Budget

Singapore – Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has taken to Facebook to thank the “mighty” Singapore reserves for coming in handy for the Resilience Budget.

On Thursday (March 26), Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat released the landmark supplementary budget statement in Parliament which was drafted to help Singapore through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tagged as the “Resilience Budget”, an additional S$48.4 billion is being provided to businesses, workers and those severely affected by the crisis through various enhanced schemes. A total of S$17 billion of the Resilience Budget is being drawn up from past reserves.

In his post on the MParader Facebook page on Friday (March 27), Mr Goh expressed his gratitude for the “mighty reserves that we have saved up over the decades”. The word “mighty” was the theme of his post as he described the Resilience Budget, the crisis and the needed response from the public with the same adjective. “A mighty Resilience Budget to counter a ‘mighty storm’ of a Covid-19 pandemic deserves our mighty applause,” wrote Mr Goh.

He added that once the economy recovers, the reserves must be built up again for future use. “Not only do we need to save for a rainy day, but we also have to save for a rising sea level day and a virus day.”

Those who responded to the post on the MParader Facebook page praised what the Government was doing to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

There were also those who zeroed in on the photo accompanying Mr Goh’s post, in which Workers’ Party leader Pritam Singh was shown in a reserved state, while others around him had broken out in applause at the end of Mr Heng’s speech.

Read more on the Resilience Budget:

Landmark supplementary budget package to help businesses severely impacted by Covid 19

Another S$48 billion given in Resilience Budget on top of the S$6.4 billion; cash payout to S’poreans tripled