This Latest $15 CPF Rant is Going to Turn Rather Badly

If you would like to post some rather vulnerable rant about the CPF on your social media, you got to recognize a few things:

1. The CPF team picks up these things rather fast. This may make people abuse the social media as a way to get their unreasonable request through
2. CPF have a serious trail of where every $1 that goes into your CPF goes. This means
   1. Into which account whether it is RA, OA, SA or Medisave
   2. If it is paid out, when it is paid out
   3. Where every dollar comes in originates from, whether it is a voluntary top up, retirement sum top up, or from your employer or employee contribution

I am not sure if there is a need for this level of sophistication but in a way, in some situations it does help.

There is this little incident that got picked up in the media.

A certain Mr Toh Thiam Hock Michael was voicing his displeasure that he is only getting $15 back in his POSB account. While his HDB is fully paid up, there are much utilities that he has to pay.

Mr Toh probably is the generation that is still under the old Minimum Sum Scheme (MSS) instead of our FRS, BRS and ERS. Instead of CPF Life, once activated, CPF will pay out a certain fixed monthly sum depending on how much he has in his CPF.

CPF provides a Response

CPF picks up these kind of chatters damn fast.

And here is their response:

No truth to allegation that most of his CPF funds were transferred to MediSave without authorisation. His Retirement Account had already been depleted following monthly payouts to him since 2013.]

Mr Michael Toh Thiam Hock claims that most of his CPF savings had been transferred to MediSave without his authorisation. This is not true. If there were such transfers, it would appear on his CPF statements.

In February 2019, in response to Mr Michael Toh’s allegation that his CPF savings were locked up, we had informed him that although he does not have enough CPF savings to meet his cohort Basic Retirement Sum, he is eligible to make a withdrawal of about $10,000 from his Ordinary Account (OA) and Special Account savings. To date, he has not applied for his lump sum withdrawal.

Like all CPF members, Mr Michael Toh’s CPF contributions are allocated to the Ordinary, MediSave and Special accounts for his housing, healthcare and retirement needs. We note that he has used over $86,000 of his CPF savings to meet these needs. Over $54,000 was used for his flat which is now fully paid up. Mr Toh has also withdrawn over $9,000 from his Retirement Account (RA) since 2013. Although his RA is now depleted, he continues to receive $15 monthly due to the government paying extra interest on his OA savings.

Like all homeowners, Mr Toh may wish to enhance his retirement income through options such as (a) renting out a room, (b) right-sizing his flat, or (c) selling a portion of his flat’s lease back to HDB under the Lease Buyback Scheme. HDB officers are available to guide him through the process.

– CPF on Social Media

You can see their response is as dry as it can be.

What we are also able to observe is how clearly CPF knows where each of Mr Toh’s CPF dollar goes to. Mr Toh has an option to take out, which means he has money.

While he does not meet the minimum sum, he is still able to take them out over time.

A Different Rant in February this Year

During the response in Feb this year, Mr Toh’s gripes is a little different:

From the CPF statements it can be seen that he has $66 to $67k in his CPF accounts last year. This is far higher than what is in the Medisave account.

The most important thing is that Mr Toh is getting $250 a month in payout from CPF Retirement Account. But the account is running out of money.

Mr Toh’s gripe then was: Why do you keep so much of my money locked away?

Further Checks on Social Media

Mr Toh’s private life from what I can see…. is deeply concerning.

He has this political slant that seemed to be not too happy with the incumbent. If you are interested, you can do a search up his name and it should bring you to that page.

But my biggest take away is this post:

I am not sure this is a satire post, or him being sarcastic. Honestly, after this series of post, I lean towards not trusting what he says most of the time.

But if you wish to come up with a coherent narrative, why follow up a post of you not having much money to pay your utilities, with a post of not having passive income non-stop?

These Rants is Likely to Backfire Badly for Him

Mr Toh does not realize that it is these kind of rants that is going to eliminate rather than advanced what he leans towards.

They feel that the government is out of touch with society. But I do think they are the one that is out of touch with society. Especially the younger ones.

He has generated a whole narrative by posting some negative comments, and then see the whole social media tearing his argument apart.

People look at this whole story and think: “Wah liew, I better don’t turn into folks like this next time.”

And those who view him associate the behavior of the parties that he leans towards to be the same as him.

People wishes to be seen as able to make logical choices. The more we have these kind of episode is going to hurt them more.

And it seems, folks like Mr Toh is really out of touch with a key part of the society, not the government.

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