choongyong.koh August 21st, 2007
From HDB
The HDB concessionary loan rate is pegged at 0.1% above the prevailing CPF interest rate. Now CPF interest rate is going to be increased to 3.5%, does this mean that the HDB concessionary loan rate will also be increased?
choongyong.koh April 18th, 2007
This article appeared in Straits Times Forum page on 18 Apr 2007:
E-disc savings will help defray HDB deficit
I REFER to the letter, ‘Charge less for parking with e-discs’ (ST, April 4), by Mr Eric Lim Cheng Wah.
The introduction of Radio Frequency Identification Technology-enabled (RFID) discs brings more convenience for season parking ticket (SPT) holders as they would no longer have to go to HDB branch offices to replace the paper SPT each time they renew their season parking. For those who renew electronically through Giro, the Internet or self-service kiosks, they do not have to wait for the paper SPT to be sent to them.
HDB currently incurs a deficit in its carparking activities. In FY05/06, the deficit was $72 million. The $600,000 cost savings from the introduction of RFID will be used to defray part of the deficit.
Eng Soh Seng
Deputy Director (Car Parks)
For Director (Housing Administration)
Housing & Development Board
The recent hotly debated Minsters’ pay totalled 56 million dollars, and that took up a whole 3-4 days of Parliamentary convincing to the people that the money was well spent.
72 million is definitely a lot more than 56 million dollars, so the question is that how come the Minister of National Development did not present this deficit in Parliament and account for the deficit? This quoted deficit was for FY05/06, so what were the deficits for the years prior to FY05/06?
choongyong.koh September 28th, 2006
Today in Straits Times Forum there is an article entitled “State-funded pension means higher taxes” (link is to an archived copy of the article, ST expires its article regularly). I happened to do some research previously on Singapore Ministers being entitled to pension. (Interestingly, I was trying to locate the article at http://totallyconfused.blogspot.com/2006/05/did-you-know-ministers-on-pension.html, but somehow it is not currently available).
Reversing the logic of state-funded pension for all means higher taxes, if we remove the pension from the Ministers (the amount is dependent on the years they serve and their salary), we can save a lot of taxes for Singaporeans! I have not done the math, but since the salary of the Ministers are not transparent to all, I cannot say for sure how much savings there will be.
choongyong.koh September 27th, 2006
It is really frustrating when you think that you can throw away your Microsoft IE browser, only to have a government website proclaiming to you that it will not support your favourite FireFox browser. Starting a list here for those I come across:
LTA - www.onemotoring.com.sg - click on LTA e-Services and you will see a big red “Please login using Internet Explorer (Version 5.5 and above) or Netscape (Version 7.0 and above).”
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