WAIVER OF TV LICENCE FEES FOR PUBLIC ASSISTANCE RECIPIENTS

WAIVER OF TV LICENCE FEES FOR PUBLIC ASSISTANCE RECIPIENTS: 17.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts if he will consider waiving the TV licence fees for all Public Assistance recipients.

The Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts (RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew) (for the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts): Mr Speaker, Sir, Radio and Television (RTV) licence fees support Public Service Broadcast (PSB) programmes, which play a critical role in communicating national and social messages. These programmes cover genres which are not commercially viable, including minority language programmes, culture, information, current affairs, quality drama, local sports and some children's programmes.

The Government recognises the financial circumstances of those who are on Public Assistance (PA) schemes. While the Broadcasting Act does not exempt the PA recipients from RTV licence fees, the Media Development Authority (MDA) does grant waivers for such households on a case-by-case basis. PA recipients can apply for such waivers by approaching MDA with the supporting documents. Upon application, MDA will assess the merits of each case and decide on the appropriate form of assistance. The assistance can be in the form of instalment payments, deferred payments or total waiver of the licencing fees altogether, depending on the merits of each case.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng: Sir, I have more than 250 PA recipients who are not very educated and they may have difficulty trying to apply for exemptions or waivers. And $110 is not a small sum for the PA recipients to pay for the TV licence. So using the analogy of the rental

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fees where, I believe, PA recipients actually pay a lower rent, I wonder if the Ministry could consider a more structured fee schedule, so that the PA recipient can pay a lower TV licence fee and thereby have their financial burden reduced.

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: The situation is that even though television is a common item in many households, not all households have a television. And, certainly, it is not just the PA recipients that may have some financial difficulties, other households may also have financial difficulties, albeit on a temporary basis. I think the better approach really is for such cases to come forward and for them to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis rather than to have tiered application fees. So that is really the approach that we prefer to take.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: Sir, I would like to ask the Minister, for obvious reason, whether we should actually be waiving the entire TV and Radio licence fee. I think the administrative hassle may not be worth it given the fact that we are soon to be a wired-up nation.

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: I think it goes back to the purpose of the fees altogether. There are certain programmes we know which are beneficial to different segments of the population, whether it is the different races or different age groups. And these programmes do need to be supported, and many of them are supported by fees that we collect from Radio and TV licences. If I were to take the example of other countries, whether in the region or beyond, as far as I know, all countries collect fees. Certainly the fees that we collect in Singapore are a very small amount compared to some of those in Europe, for example. But the point is that the fees serve a very important purpose in order to help support programmes which would otherwise not be commercially viable.

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Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, actually I have the same question as Mdm Ho, but a clarification from the Minister whether there is a need for TV licence fee. Can the Government pay for whatever programmes to serve the social purpose? Why must it get the audience to pay for licence fee?

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: I think at the end of the day, those programmes need to be paid for. If they are not paid as a result of the licence fees that are collected, then they will have to come from other means like, for example, raising taxes. And, certainly, to me, this is not as desirable as the non-users of such broadcasting services will also be required to pay for these services as well.

Miss Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Could the Senior Minister of State give us an idea of how much fees are being collected on a yearly basis and how much of the total production cost might be, which might be funded by other revenues such as advertising revenue?

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: I believe that the PSB funding comes to about close to $80 million and this is largely derived from the Radio and Television licence fees. I do not have the figures on advertising revenue with me.