The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) leader Chee Soon Juan is taking credit for his party ahead of election hustings.
The SDP leader said it was his team's constant probing and harping on issues that made the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) government more responsive.
He made these comments after a walkabout at the Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre on Sunday, Jan 19.
Will continue to press government for answers
Speaking to reporters, Chee said his party will continue to press the ruling government on three hot-button issues as general election draws near.
The three issues the SDP would continue to be "hammering away" at, Chee said, were cost of living, job prospects and security for Singaporeans, and Central Provident Fund savings for retirees.
Chee said: "Now we have been going on at these three issues, and lo and behold, whether it is a coincidence or not, we will let people figure out, the PAP has become big on these three issues as well."
GST, CPF & upgrading issues
Deputy prime minister and finance minister Heng Swee Keat addressing the (goods and services tax) GST increase issue preemptively in November 2019 at the PAP convention was also cited by Chee as the result of his party's questioning.
Chee said the impending hike in the GST from 7 percent to 9 percent will add to the cost of living.
The GST hike, announced in 2018, will take effect sometime between 2021 and 2025.
If elected, the SDP will get the ruling PAP to address and account for the GST raise, Chee said.
Chee also said rules regarding Central Provident Fund payouts were tweaked after questions were raised about feasibility of payouts lasting up to three decades.
About 60,000 members on the CPF Retirement Sum Scheme have seen an increase in their monthly payouts as a result of a policy change.
On a local estate level, Chee and SDP treasurer Bryan Lim have been lobbying for lift upgrading at Block 115 and 119 in Marsiling Rise.
Speaking alongside Chee was SDP chairman Paul Tambyah.
Tambyah was the first person to pose a query to DPM Heng at the Institute of Policy Studies' Singapore Perspectives conference on Jan. 20, a day after the walkabout.
He echoed Chee's take that GST was a regressive tax and asked Heng whether the government had considered alternatives to the impending rise in the GST.
Heng replied that it was important to consider Singapore’s tax system as a whole, and not just to pick out one or two parts of it and label them as regressive.
You can watch a truncated version of Chee Soon Juan's interview below, with transcript:
Transcript:
Now we have been going on at these three issues, and lo and behold, whether it is a coincidence or not, I will let people figure out.
The PAP has also become big on these three issues as well, right?
Mr Heng Swee Keat in the PAP’s convention in November last year, had come out and said, ‘We have got to address the GST’ and if he doesn’t, the opposition will be doing that.'
And we have been saying you cannot continue to do this because GST is a regressive tax.
It is not fair to the middle and lower income groups.
So what he's done is that he has come big and proposed, support measures in this Budget.
From now until Budget, the SDP, we are going to be focusing and calling the PAP out on what it's been doing.
It's been taking taxpayers money putting in some of these measures, and then use that in the expenditure in the Budget, and tell people because expenditure is so high, we have got to raise taxes again, GST again.
The problem is that the GST has been earmarked for two big projects: Healthcare and infrastructure.
So when they put it in healthcare, they put it in Merdeka Generation Package and Pioneer Generation Package, and then they put that as part of your expenditure.
Why don't you just try this? This outrageous idea of not raising taxes and not using the money, than to give people before the elections?
That works too, isn't it?
So this is what we are trying to go after and this is one thing will be focusing on and we want to give the PAP a head's up, saying that they had better make a lot of sense and not use this Budget as a gimmick to win votes during this election.
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I have just been walking around and at least a few people have already come up to us saying that they are very worried about their job security.
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This has been going on for years and just right now you're telling us that you're going to tighten up?
You have to be wondering what the PAP has been doing all these time.
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As I said, retirees and whether they have enough income for their golden years the twilight years and we've been harping on this fact saying that Singapore government cannot do this to our retirees when they have worked all their lives, played the games, paid their taxes, played the games by the rules, and now they find themselves without sufficient income.
So what does the government do? And we've made this point.
The payout is dragged out for 28 years. If you start doing it at 65, your last payout will come at 93 years old.
Singaporeans have given us a lot of feedback saying this does not make any sense at all.
So what does the government do? It starts peeling back a little, making concessions.
This is the biggest message I want to send to Singaporeans right now.
Because we have been harping on these points, because we have made it clear this GE, we're going to raise these issues, make it our platform.
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The PAP knows it, now it is beginning to backtrack, it is making concessions right now.
Our message to the people is, if you want this whole PAP to be moderated, PAP's excessive policies, then get us into parliament this time round and you are going to be able to at least have us address make them account for why they are raising the GST to 9 percent.
On top of everything they have increased over the past few years since the last GE.
These are the issues we want Singaporeans to talk about, to pay attention to, and going forward to the GE, and more immediately into this Budget.