We asked Minister for Manpower and Minister for Social and Family Development Tan Chuan-Jin many questions in the first part of this interview.

What more can we ask of him or about him? Well, quite a few more.

For example, CPF is whose money? What has he learnt during his time at the Ministry of Manpower? Will he, as a guardsman, be in the same room as the Commandos?

And little did we know that he would soon be the ex-Manpower Minister as he is due to helm the Ministry of Social and Family Development in an announcement on April 8, 2015.

Here is part two of our interview with Minister Tan before the announcement was made.

Question 1: Minister, you are a Guardsman, what are your thoughts about Commandos? And did you have to seek clearance from HDB when you rappelled from the HDB flat?

I have a lot of friends who are commandos, and frankly, in any operations you really wouldn’t ask for anybody else to watch your back. I’ve worked with them, jumped with them. After the tsunami in 2004, for example, we were providing humanitarian assistance, they were there and where there were sticky situations, they stepped in and addressed some of the concerns.

They are people I’d put my life on the line for them and depend on them. Okay so they’re commandos and we are rivals, but that’s okay (laugh), I can live with that.

As for rappelling, I didn’t ask for clearance but I assume People’s Association did do all the clearance with HDB.

That was interesting because I hadn’t actually rappelled for quite a long time when I did that. From the 11th floor I thought it’d be a bit nerve-wracking but it was okay, it was quite fun.

And some MPs also followed you? 

Yah, Zaqy (Choa Chu Kang MP Zaqy Mohamad) was the host MP there, so he also kena pressured to tag along. Well, it was fun. I mean I’m sure he did that during his OCS (Officer Cadet School) days as well. But that was good fun.

I’m not sure where we’re going with this. But there are possibilities to use even our urban landscape like our HDB flats and our buildings for more outdoor activities. I don’t know whether this can be something more regular, but it’s a possible development, I guess.

Question 2: Complete this sentence. CPF is ___ money.

CPF is your retirement money.

Make full use of the system as best as you can.

It’s not like your bank account; you go to the bank ATM, you withdraw money.

Your Ordinary Account has more flexibility. In fact, all of us are using our CPF money via the OA account. Especially in helping us fund our housing needs. To some degree, investments too, if we want to go down that path, and education. Then of course, there’s also our Medisave Account for healthcare.

Your Special Account obviously is more ringfenced because it is meant to cater for our retirement years.

So, CPF is your retirement money. Make full use of the system, as best as you can.

Question 3: What is your advice for young Singaporeans regarding their CPF?

The most important thing is to read and understand what CPF does, what it doesn’t do and understanding what it really is.

We all know it is important but many people don’t spend time to read the information that is available. We’ve been trying to package it in a more digestible form.

When you understand what it can do, it is potentially a very powerful platform for you to make it part of your whole financial planning suite of options.

For example, recently in Parliament, I gave the example of compounding interest, especially in your Special Account.

The amount can be quite mind-boggling when the number adds up.

We all know about compounding. The Special Account for example is quite fixed –you have a baseline of 4% interest. But for the first $60,000 in your account, you have an additional 1%, which means you can earn up to 5% interest before 55.

And later at age 55, your first $30,000 of retirement savings will earn 6%, next $30,000 draws 5% and the rest 4%.

If a guy earns $2,200, which is really below median income, and for simplicity we assume his income stays at this level and he works 80% of the time, or 32 out of 40 years, he would set aside $55,000 in just his Special Account without compounding interest. But with compounding interest, it triples to almost $165,000.

And I didn’t include the Ordinary Account in my example because you can use that for housing, for education purposes, for CPF investment schemes.

This is just using one simple example of a relatively modest salary, keeping it fixed, with no bonuses whatsoever.

My advice will be: Read, understand what it does and learn how to use it to the best of your advantage and there are things you can do to benefit from it.

Question 4: It has been almost four years since you've been working on the Manpower portfolio, what have you learnt in your time with MOM so far?

Before I came to MOM, I didn’t have much idea what MOM does.

I am struck by the reach of what we do here. For example, CPF, Workfare, Silver Support, Employment Act, Employment and Foreign Manpower Act, workplace safety. They affect everyone.

The public contributes very substantive suggestions and we plough through them and mesh them with the data to see what is happening in the real world.

The statisticians have an almost obsessive approach to making sure that the data is accurate, as unvarnished as possible so that we can analyse it quite dispassionately to see what is happening to different segments of society.

Policy makers look at policies to improve things. I told them to dredge out all those things they’ve felt strongly about over the years, which perhaps in the past we didn’t quite get to move.

And the execution stage, we’ve got many frontline officers. Our call centres are dealing with up to 10,000 calls a day during peak periods. We’re the biggest call centres in the public service. And they sometimes put up with difficult customers, who can be quite nasty and unpleasant, yet they try to be as professional as they can.

That to me is one of the most striking things about being in MOM – the people. As a first-time Minister you really cannot ask for better colleagues to serve alongside with.

But many people don’t see this, unfortunately.

We’re not going to get it right all the time, it is not the perfect organisation, you will have lapses and you will sometimes have individuals who provide less than expected service, but on balance so much goes into the work that is done.

Another thing that strikes me is that the policies and bills that are passed actually impact people’s lives in very significant ways.

This is built on many years of work and it is continuous.

Keen to read more about Minister Tan Chuan-Jin?

Below are some related articles about him:

New Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin explains why there is a hyphen in his name

Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin gets dunked for charity

Minister Tan Chuan-Jin goes for In-Camp Training

Top photo by Tan Xing Qi.

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.