Ahead of the announcement of the fourth budget of the year in Parliament on Tuesday (May 26), President Halimah Yacob took to Facebook on Monday (May 25) to state that she had given her in-principle support for the proposed measures to draw on Singapore's past reserves.

The fourth budget — named the Fortitude Budget — will be focused on jobs, wrote Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Heng Swee Keat, also in a Facebook post on Monday.

Gave in-principle support

Halimah shared that she and the Council of Presidential Advisers had been briefed by Heng and his team of ministers the previous week on the Fortitude Budget.

This is the second time the reserves have been drawn from for Covid-19 response efforts, the first being for the Resilience and Solidarity Budgets.

Halimah noted that the current crisis is "unprecedented" and that the situation is "volatile", as the global economy continues to have significant uncertainties.

"Lives and livelihoods continue to be at stake. It is critical that we re-open safely, so economic activities will remain slow even as we try to restart them," she wrote.

She shared that the fourth support package is "necessary to ensure a safe transition to this new normal for Singapore", and therefore has given her in-principle support for the proposed measures to draw on past reserves.

You can see her full post here:

Jobs a key part of Fortitude Budget

The Fortitude Budget was given its name to pay tribute to the courage in adversity that Singapore's founding generation showed, said Heng in his Facebook post.

However, unlike the founding generation, Heng wrote, we are in a position of strength when facing this current crisis:

"Our resilience as a society and our deep financial reserves are built on the sweat and toil of our founding generation, and the personal sacrifices they made for the larger good."

As the Covid-19 pandemic has affected livelihoods and lives both globally and in Singapore, the fourth budget will focus on jobs, said Heng.

Although the Jobs Support Scheme allowed many employers to keep their workers, there have also been many who have lost their jobs or are worried about retrenchment.

Heng said the government will support those seeking to learn new skills, create new jobs, and create traineeships for those completing their post-secondary education.

In addition to jobs, the Fortitude Budget will also give additional support to social sector agencies, to help them continue their work with vulnerable communities, wrote Heng.

He thanked Halimah for her support for drawing on past reserves, and emphasised that the decision to do so was not an easy one:

"We deliberated long and hard on this. Our past reserves were hard earned, and we have the responsibility of making every dollar count."

Top image via Facebook / Halimah Yacob and Facebook / Heng Swee Keat.