Bukit Batok by-election: Chee asks why poverty issues persist

Yahoo Singapore
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SDP chairman Chee Soon Juan and his wife, Huang Chi Mei, seen during the party’s walkabout on Sunday (3 April). Photo: Dhany Osman/Yahoo Newsroom

By Dhany Osman

Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and the party’s candidate for the Bukit Batok by-election, highlighted on Sunday (3 April) how his party would tackle the “poverty issue” differently from the People’s Action Party (PAP).

Speaking at a doorstop interview in Bukit Batok, Chee was told that his by-election opponent, Murali Pillai, would focus on needy residents and was asked how his approach to the matter would be different.

Chee, 53, responded by asking how Murali could bring “value add” to residents, when he had “been with the ruling party all this time”.

“When you have MP after MP after MP in Parliament and still these poverty issues continue… how does he (Murali) bring this issue to his superiors in Parliament? If he was really interested, he would have brought it up a long time ago.”

“We (the SDP) don’t want residents to be dependent on handouts,” said Chee. “We want to empower them. That’s the difference. The more they are dependent on handouts, the more the power can be used as an overlord to them.”

Chee said he had seen many “pockets of poverty” while on his walkabouts and said the party would soon be announcing the details of its social programmes.