‘No need to draw on S’pore reserves as revenues turned out higher than expected’ — Lawrence Wong on S$1.4 billion fiscal support for workers & businesses

Singapore — Speaking on the S$1.4 billion financial scheme rolled out for workers and businesses during the country’s Stabilisation Phase, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said there was no need to touch past reserves as revenues have turned out to be higher than expected in 2021.

The fiscal support was extended to affected parties from Sept 27 to Nov 21 this year to help safeguard livelihoods during the pandemic, said Mr Wong in a Facebook post on Thursday (Dec 9).

He noted that there was no need to draw from Singapore’s reserves to fulfil the financial support.

“As I shared previously, we need not draw on the Past Reserves to fund the support measures, as our revenues have turned out to be higher than expected this year,” said Mr Wong.

The financial support was extended in various measures, such as the enhancement of the Jobs Support Scheme, which provides wage support to businesses to help retain local employees and rental waivers.

A half-month rental waiver was rolled out to qualifying tenants of government-owned commercial properties, stallholders in food centres managed by the National Environment Agency (NEA) or NEA-appointed operators, as well as qualifying tenant-occupiers and owner-occupiers of privately owned commercial properties.

Taxi drivers and private-hire car drivers also received support of S$10 per vehicle per day in November and S$5 per day in December.

To ensure the timely rollout of the support measures, he explained that the Ministry of Finance (MOF) took an advance from the Contingencies Fund, which is established for urgent and unforeseen expenditures like the pandemic.

At a later date, we will introduce a Supplementary Supply Bill in Parliament to replace the advances, said Mr Wong.

As any advances from the Contingencies Fund require the concurrence of the President, Mr Wong highlighted that this had been approved by President Halimah Yacob at an earlier date.

“As we press on together, I want to thank all public officers and agencies across the whole of government who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic,” he noted.

“Your efforts – in every agency and every capacity – have been invaluable and have made a big impact,” he added. /TISG

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