Your views: What can we do to try to prevent another Singaporean from being driven to desperation because he or she cannot pay bills?

Mr Tan Jee Suan, a 46 year-old Singaporean odd-job labourer with two young children, committed suicide by jumping on to the MRT track at Chinese Garden station on October 18.

According to media reports, he had been receiving financial assistance from South-West Community Development Council of $120 a month from September 2003 to November 2004, $375 a month from November 2004 to June 2005, and was rejected twice last year and this year applying for financial assistance, because his household monthly income was $1,400.

On his third attempt to apply for financial assistance in February, he was advised to apply for the Pay-As-You-Use (PAYU) meter to pay for utilities, but he found it too complicated and gave up.

He had a history of not having a steady job, and after being unemployed for the last four months, owed over $1,000 in utilities for more than four months, HDB payments, school fees for a year, etc.

Of late, they were having difficulty putting three meals on the table, and were surviving mostly on instant noodles. When Mr Tan was found, he had only $16 in his wallet.

His last act on the day he died was to tell his wife that he would find some money to give to her and gave nine dollars to his youngest son for the family's dinner and transport fares, and told him that he was going to work and asked him to look after his mother.

Despite being a person with a polio disability, his wife was working in a factory earning about $500 a month. She pays about $50 a month for her medical fees.

Her husband had complained of body aches, but refused to seek medical treatment because he said he could not afford to.

She did not even have the bus fare to go to see her husband’s body, and the policeman who informed her of her husband’s death gave her five dollars.

They still have 15 years' left of their housing loan to settle and Mrs Tan said that she has to pay more than $300 a month from her CPF for the three-room flat... So far, Singaporeans have donated about $500,000 to the family.

The utilities company in a letter to the media on October 25, said that it has "on many occasions, referred families in dire financial straits to the Community Development Council". Hence, Mr Tan lost his will to live, despite being referred by the utilities company to the CDC.

I would like to suggest that schools can also send an alert when a student has not been able to pay school fees for say more than six months, so that no Singaporean will ever be driven to desperation again, without anyone knowing about their plight.

According to HDB’s annual report, it gave financial assistance to 28,386 flat owners for the financial year ended March, a drop of 26 per cent from the previous year.

According to the Department of Statistics General Household Survey 2005, there were 113,646 households with monthly income below $1,500, and 106,384 households with no income from work – presumably most of which are retirees.

According to the article "Mortgage sales of HDB flats on the rise: But trend is to be expected as banks' portfolios mature, say industry watchers" by Siow Li Sen (Business Times, Oct 20), and a New Paper report on October 20, just four property auction companies have had increasing HDB bank loan foreclosures of about 38 flats a month (456 a year), which is an annual increase of about 690 per cent (456 divided by 190 divided by 3) over the 190 flats foreclosed in the first three years after bank loans started for HDB flats on January 1, 2003.

All the banks offering HDB loans declined to reveal figures on their foreclosures. After three years and nine months, the default rate of about one per cent is quite high as there are already about 700 foreclosures out of a total of about 70,000 HDB flats with bank loans.

On October 13, HDB announced a new procedure that from January 1 next year, those who want to apply for a housing loan will first need to obtain a loan eligibility letter before they can commit to buying a new flat. How many Singaporeans have to lose their homes and CPF, before we re-think the policy change of giving the first charge on property to banks?"

The utilities company in a letter to the media on October 25, said that it has "on many occasions, referred families in dire financial straits to the Community Development Council". Hence, Mr Tan lost his will to live, despite being referred by the utilities company to the CDC.

I would like to suggest that schools can also send an alert when a student has not been able to pay school fees for say more than six months, so that no Singaporean will ever be driven to desperation again, without anyone knowing about their plight.

According to HDB’s annual report, it gave financial assistance to 28,386 flat owners for the financial year ended March, a drop of 26 per cent from the previous year.

According to the Department of Statistics General Household Survey 2005, there were 113,646 households with monthly income below $1,500, and 106,384 households with no income from work – presumably most of which are retirees.

According to the article "Mortgage sales of HDB flats on the rise: But trend is to be expected as banks' portfolios mature, say industry watchers" by Siow Li Sen (Business Times, Oct 20), and a New Paper report on October 20, just four property auction companies have had increasing HDB bank loan foreclosures of about 38 flats a month (456 a year), which is an annual increase of about 690 per cent (456 divided by 190 divided by 3) over the 190 flats foreclosed in the first three years after bank loans started for HDB flats on January 1, 2003.

All the banks offering HDB loans declined to reveal figures on their foreclosures. After three years and nine months, the default rate of about one per cent is quite high as there are already about 700 foreclosures out of a total of about 70,000 HDB flats with bank loans.

On October 13, HDB announced a new procedure that from January 1 next year, those who want to apply for a housing loan will first need to obtain a loan eligibility letter before they can commit to buying a new flat.

How many Singaporeans have to lose their homes and CPF, before we re-think the policy change of giving the first charge on property to banks?

Singapore Power’s profits increased by 53 per cent last year. SBS's profit after taxation rose 5.1 and 158.6 per cent, for 2005 and 2004 respectively. SMRT's profit after taxation has risen from 56.8 million in 2002 to 103.6 million in 2006.

Now, before the expected increase in revenue and profits from the fares hike effective October 1, SMRT has reported a 13 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit to $31.5 million for the second quarter ended September 2006. I would like to suggest that there be a review of whether and to what extent basic essentials like utilities and transport should continue to be profit-making when they are in essence monopolies?

Leong Sze Hian