TOPPING UP OF CPF RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS

TOPPING UP OF CPF RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS:

(Communication with CPF members): 3.

Mdm Halimah Yacob asked the Minister for Manpower in view of the recent amendments made to the CPF Act, what measures have been taken to communicate with CPF members to encourage them and make it easier to top up the Retirement Accounts of their family members as many are still unaware of this flexibility.

The Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Gan Kim Yong) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, the recent amendments to the CPF Act expanded the list of eligible top-up recipients and raised the Retirement Account top-up limit to the prevailing Minimum Sum.

Currently, the CPF Board has a publicity programme to encourage members to top up the Retirement Accounts of their family members. It had previously identified and sent direct mailers to over

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163,000 eligible donors and publicised the Scheme in the major local newspapers. The Scheme is also being promoted on the CPF website and at CPF events, such as roadshows which are held at high-traffic areas such as the Toa Payoh HDB Hub and Marina Square Shopping Mall.

With the recent changes to the Minimum Sum Topping-up Scheme, CPF Board will send personalised letters to potential recipients as well as their family members who are eligible to make the top-up.

In addition, we will also help CPF members better understand how they could top up their Retirement Accounts as well as that of their family members to derive maximum benefit from the extra interest tier in the upcoming changes to the CPF interest rate structure. MOM and the CPF Board have engaged grassroots leaders and made available materials to enable them to advise their constituents. Fourteen grassroots dialogue sessions were arranged for the various constituencies in October, with another six sessions to be held in November. The CPF Board will further promote the Topping-up Scheme by working closely with the media and organising special events, such as public talks and roadshows, to educate CPF members.

Mdm Halimah Yacob (Jurong): Sir, I would like to ask the Minister of State how many CPF members have topped up the Retirement Accounts of their family members.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, the number of eligible donors in total is about 146,000. So far, we do not have an accurate number of members who have topped up. It is around 3,000. That is the number I have got so far.

Mdm Halimah Yacob: Mr Speaker, Sir, only 3,000 made use of the facility although there are 146,000 donors. So

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obviously, the publicity effort has not generated much outcome.

I would like to urge the Ministry to consider other possibilities and options, so that the family members can really benefit from these new changes to the Act, and also the benefit of a higher return for their Retirement Account.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Mr Speaker, just a correction, the number is about 6,000. We agree that a lot more effort needs to be done to encourage members to top up, and the CPF will continue with its promotional efforts to explain the benefits of these top-ups and to also encourage and help members, as some of them may not understand the effects of the benefits of these schemes. CPF will continue to work with grassroots leaders and Members of Parliament to reach out to eligible members to encourage them to take up these top-up schemes.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad (Hong Kah): Sir, to add on to Mdm Halimah's point, are there measures in place to assess the effectiveness of these channels that are currently being used by the Ministry of Manpower and CPF?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: We do get in touch with our members and we also reach out to them through our various channels, through the CPF Board's offices and the members do come to the CPF offices to ask for clarification. We will also continue to explain to them. I think, over time, we will allow this scheme to evolve. Some of the measures have been introduced only recently. So it will take some time for these measures to take effect, and there will be greater awareness of these top-up schemes that we have put in place.