Parliamentary Replies

Date: 20 January 2015

Parliamentary Question by Mr Seng Han Tong:

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance (a) how many appeals on the Pioneer Generation package has the Ministry received as of December 2014; (b) how many of such appeals have been dealt with and what is the rate of success; (c) what are the main grounds of the unsuccessful appeals; and (d) what are the main grounds of the successful appeals.

Reply by Senior Minister of State for Transport and Finance Josephine Teo:

As of 31 December 2014, the Appeals Panel has received about 2,900 appeals, of which about 2,480 have been evaluated, comprising 85% of all appeals received.

As we explained in response to an earlier PQ and during the debate on the Pioneer Generation Fund Bill, the Panel recognised that the Government had already adopted a more inclusive approach by extending the Pioneer Generation Package to all those born in 1949 or earlier. Whatever the age set, there will always be those who marginally fall short of it. It would therefore not be feasible or fair to allow age-related appeals without extending the new age criterion to all Singaporeans. Hence, as provided under the Pioneer Generation Fund Act, the Panel decided that it would only consider appeals relating to the citizenship criterion.

As part of the evaluation process, the Panel considers whether the person had obtained Singapore citizenship shortly after 1986 – the year set as the citizenship cut-off date for eligibility of the Pioneer Generation Package. In addition, it looks at factors such as whether he or she had been in Singapore since the early years of independence, contributed to our society, and had demonstrated clear efforts to sink roots in Singapore. To date, the Panel has approved 642 of such appeals.