Singaporean elderly kill daughter and commit suicide due to poverty – States Times Review

Driven to desperation due to abject poverty, a 69-year-old elderly Singaporean poor stabbed his intellectual-disabled daughter to death and then committed suicide by jumping off the eighth floor of the HDB block they live in.

According to a coroner report published yesterday (Sep 7), the tragedy happened on Aug 20 last year. Singapore’s state coroner did not give details of the financial state the elderly man’s family were in, but there were 8 family members – including the elderly, his wife, 3 children, one son-in-law and two grandchildren – living in a single HDB apartment unit.

It is unknown how much CPF payout the elderly man was drawing, and whether if the family was in severe financial hardship, or if the government follow up on the family’s case.

CPF payout is also at a record low, no thanks to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s changing regulations to delay retirement payout. With no regards whether an elderly retiree have enough for retirement, the CPF funds pay as low as S$100 a month, depending on the amount a Singaporean accumulate during his employment years. Although housewives, low income workers and those with irregular CPF contributions are most affected by low CPF payouts, the majority are not having sufficient either due to low interest rates. CPF currently pays 2.5% per annum – the lowest interest rate among all superannuation and retirement funds.

Singapore’s corrupted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong needed the CPF funds to gamble in overseas investments, which have seen losses in the tens of billions. Sitting himself as the permanent Chairman of sovereign wealth fund company GIC, Lee Hsien Loong led the investment company into failure with the latest 20-year-annualised return rate falling to 3.2% from 4.1% in 2016.