Dear TRS,
I am currently in my final-year accountancy degree studies at NTU, scheduled to end my last exam in May.
As most accountancy undergraduates can tell you, we are willing to settle for lower starting salaries for experience in public accounting firms. Most would start out as auditors and then move to the corporate world after gaining experience of about 3 years when they get their CA qualifications.
You see, my cohort has about 800 people and we have about 20% foreigners. Although this is quite little, some faculties like engineering have as much as 80% foreigners which will only highlight this problem as I will now explain.
As the time comes to transit to the workforce, most of my classmates and I are comparing starting salaries. Having a starting salary of $2250 after CPF deduction, I was shocked to learn that my foreign friends are getting a take-home pay of $3300.
Although our pay package is almost the same, the effects of CPF are killing Singaporeans because our take home pay is almost 30% less. Being in Business School, most people are financially savvy and know how to invest in a diversified yet safe portfolio of stocks which would return about 8%.
Given that our CPF pays average of 3.5%, we are losing about 4.5% a year on average. Over a working lifetime, this could mean at least $300,000 less in retirement savings. The damn-ed PAP treats us like financial idiots and thinks we do not know how to invest when they make profits while treating our CPF as cheap loans.
My male counterparts also have to do 2 years of NS, which on an accountant’s pay would mean that they lose about $80,000 in opportunity costs. This is grossly unfair yet some retarded PAP MP still has the nerve to say that it is a privilege reserved for Singaporeans.
I have long hated the PAP government but this is in utter shock to me. Forget what the government statistics tell you. Most local undergraduates are funding their studies by student loans while most foreign students are on scholarships. This is an open secret and Singaporeans are losing $50,000 for a degree.
Taken in totality, one must open his eyes to realise that the PAP has robbed Singaporean males of almost $500,000 a lifetime through their policies. I hope other Singaporeans can wake up to the PAP‘s anti-Singaporean policies and vote them out in 2016.
Sincerely,
Joyce
TRS Contributor