Dear Mr Goh,
I would like to update you that the means testing system in place at SECDC turns out to be more of a hindrance than help to citizens in dire straits and need.
The government has not changed one bit since B.E. 2013 and told me that I need to either ask my siblings for help or learn how to fend for myself and not keep looking for handouts during tough times.
They now want to interrogate my brother and sister to involve them if I was to proceed with their help. They say they are not fazed we have aged parents and that my siblings have their families to care for.
We are of the lower middle income tier and are genuinely struggling to make ends meet on a daily basis. We are not PAP minister material or MP calibre that earns in an hour, what we make in a month.
IPTO deducts $100 monthly from my POSB approved account and a further deduction of $2 is made when I have a shortfall lesser than $500.
Even when the deductions persist until I’m 90 assuming I am still alive then, I would not have paid even half the bill.
So I do not why this country does not give us first timers a chance when other first world nations do.
I would like to say we are not criminals or animals for that matter to not even be allowed travel to west Malaysia.
In view of this, I hope you can refer me to any available assistance where my family or I do not have to go through anymore governmental humiliation.
Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely,
Tan Li Yin
*Article first appeared on http://www.transitioning.org/2014/06/17/single-bankrupt-mum-disappointed...