Bringing Forward Distribution of CDC Vouchers

9 Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance in light of persistent high inflation rates in the last few months, whether the Ministry will consider (i) bringing the distribution of CDC Vouchers forward to the third quarter of 2022 instead of January 2023 and (ii) issuing $100 CDC Vouchers to every Singaporean aged more than 21 years old instead of to each household.

The Senior Minister of State for Finance (Mr Chee Hong Tat) (for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance): Mr Speaker, to help Singaporean households with their daily expenses, the Government has disbursed two sets of CDC Vouchers worth $100 each in December 2021 and May 2022. These vouchers can be used at over 18,000 participating heartland merchants and hawkers until the end of this year.

The vouchers have been well utilised. As of September 2022, about 97% and 87% of Singaporean households have claimed their December 2021 and May 2022 CDC Vouchers respectively. These households have utilised $180 million, which is about 80% of the total vouchers available to them.

Besides the CDC Vouchers, we have a mix of support measures given at the household and individual levels to help Singaporeans cope with inflation and cost of living concerns, with more help given to the lower-income and vulnerable groups. This financial year, a low-income couple with two young children living in a 3-room HDB flat can expect to receive about $3,700 in various forms of support, such as cash, education top-ups, utilities and Service & Conservancy Charges (S&CC) rebates, and CDC Vouchers.

The Government understands Singaporeans’ concerns over rising prices. We are carefully monitoring the situation and will consider if there is a need to provide more assistance, or bring forward some of the support schemes, especially if the situation worsens further.

Mr Speaker: Mr Ang Wei Neng.

Mr Ang Wei Neng (West Coast): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for the comprehensive reply. I have postponed this Parliamentary Question (PQ) three times since July this year and for the past three months, inflation rate has been gaining momentum and breaking records month after month. It is now 5.1% in August, the highest in 14 years. We understand that Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has repeatedly said that the Government is prepared to do more if the inflation is persistently high. And now, we are experiencing this phenomenon.

I think the Senior Minister of State will agree that households with a bigger number of people face more challenging headwinds in this high inflation environment compared to households with lesser members. So, would the Government consider giving more CDC vouchers to bigger households as compared to smaller households?

Also, the second part of my question is, will the Government consider giving the CDC Vouchers to individual Singaporeans, rather than one per household?

And lastly, what else will the Government consider doing, given that inflation has been consistent for the past few months since the last announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in May to give more help to Singaporeans?

Mr Speaker: A reminder to Members. Please do keep your supplementary questions short and not inflate it.

Mr Chee Hong Tat: Mr Speaker, the Government has been rolling out different measures to help Singaporean families and individuals, and these include measures that were previously announced during Budget 2022 and during the June announcement where we launched a $1.5 billion package to support Singaporeans. So, some of these measures are still being implemented, are still being rolled out.

But as I mentioned in my reply, we are closely monitoring the situation and if it is necessary for us to provide more support, we are prepared to do so.

Mr Speaker, CDC Vouchers are a very useful part of the support package but they form part of the overall assistance package from the Government. Besides CDC Vouchers, there are also many other schemes to help Singaporeans to cushion the impact of rising prices, such as additional U-Save rebates and Household Utilities Credit. We give Edusave and Child Development Account top-ups, and also public transport vouchers, just to name a few examples.

We also provide additional GST-Voucher cash payments of up to $300 to eligible Singaporeans, aged 21 and above. So, this is not household, this is to individuals, to eligible Singaporeans, aged 21 and above. These are targeted to provide more assistance to lower-income Singaporeans, which, I think, is a better and more effective way compared to giving everybody $100 of CDC Vouchers, regardless of their wealth and income levels.

Because we know, given limited resources, it is correct to channel more funding to help our lower-income and vulnerable Singaporeans because they are more affected by rising prices. But at the same time, we do have broad-based schemes, like CDC Vouchers and Household Utilities Credits, which we will give to all households to provide some help, to help them to cushion the impact of high inflation.