Discrepancy between Amount Budgeted for Voucher Schemes and Actual Amount Disbursed

Parliamentary Question by Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim:

To ask the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance for each of the fiscal years 2019 to 2024, what was the discrepancy between the amount budgeted for nationwide vouchers (e.g. CDC, Climate, SG60) and the amount eventually disbursed.

Parliamentary Reply by Second Minister for Finance, Ms Indranee Rajah:

The voucher schemes introduced by the Government over the past few years serve different policy objectives.

To assess the take-up of our voucher schemes, it is more meaningful to look at the overall utilisation of the schemes across their validity periods, rather than the budget utilisation for each Financial Year (FY). The overall utilisation varies from 23% for the Climate Friendly Households Programme Vouchers in Phase 1, 56% for the SingapoRediscovers Vouchers, to over 90% for Community Development Council (CDC) Vouchers issued up to 2024. SG60 vouchers were only issued this year.