.SMALL FAMILIES IMPROVEMENT SCHEME - RESPONSE

24 Aug 1993

        This is my response to the Principal Private Secretary to the 
Prime Minister Mr Khaw Boon Wan's letter (ST, Aug 24, 1993).
        Mr Khaw has misunderstood my example of teenage mothers. 
It is not to plead for an extension of benefits. Rather it is to illustrate my 
argument that single motherhood in teenagers will not be discouraged 
by the penalties. This is because  the couple must be married in the first 
place in order to qualify. The rationale for the penalties therefore rings a 
little hollow in this area.
        Mr Khaw failed to address concerns about the eligibility status 
of a woman who obtains a divorce on ground of abandonment. The 
court cannot compel an absent man to pay alimony. Nor has he 
clarified the status of a woman who "accidentally" has a third child  but 
gives the baby up for adoption, having decided against abortion on 
moral grounds.
        I am not as confident as Mr Khaw that the broken family will 
be "no worse off" than before. The CPF money has to be repaid with 
interest. The apartment will in all probability eventually have to be given 
up. If the bursaries had helped to pay for the children's educational 
enrichment, well then, those enrichment programs will have to be given 
up, won't they? Is it better to have joined and lost - big time - than to 
have never joined at all?
        The penalties seem too harsh to me, even if well-intentioned. 
Perhaps it is sufficient to stop the CPF subsidy rather than require 
repayment. In the case of education bursaries, why make the children 
pay for their parents' problems? Are we not dis-investing in them by 
discontinuing bursaries? Perhaps it would be a sufficiently strong 
deterrent to larger families to restrict the amount of bursary to the figure 
calculated for two children.
        Mr Khaw promises that the scheme will be fine-tuned. That is 
reassuring. Why not fine-tune it before it is implemented?