In the Singapore Democratic Party's CBD lunch time rally today, Dr Chee Soon Juan called on Singaporeans to check the People's Action Party and stop it from doing as it pleases by voting their candidates into parliament.
Speaking about the failed investments by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and investment company Temasek Holdings, Dr Chee said that without an opposition to check on the PAP, the government "does as it pleases, making dangerous, wrong decisions without proper scrutiny and accountability."
"The Government accuses of coming up with policies of tax and spend, but what they will do is take our reserves and make failed investments," said Dr Chee, on Monday afternoon at the party's fifth rally outside UOB Plaza in Raffles Place. This is the first lunchtime rally of the election campaign.
Dr Chee noted the PAP government's additional $4 billion planned for healthcare spending and says that the PAP came up with the plan only after SDP pointed out about the government's limited expenditure on healthcare, which currently numbers at about 30%.
"$4 billion might sound like a lot, but it's the same amount of money Temasek Holdings offered in 2014 in a highly questionable investment in Olam International, a debt ridden company. Market watchers and investors almost across the board decried the move," said Dr Chee.
"(The sum) is also the amount that Temasek paid, if you remember, for Shin Corp. It was an investment that ultimately ended up in smoke."
He added that in 2008, GIC and Temasek admitted they lost a combined sum of $120 billion to $140 billion in investments in Westerns banks like Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Barclays during the Global Financial Crisis.
"In the meantime, our hospitals face repeated shortages of beds and have to put patients in corridors and makeshift tents - some of you may have experienced it yourself, bringing elderly parents to the hospital. Some of you may have had to wait, sometimes up to a day for them to be admitted to get a bed in a ward.
"Priorities!" he declared, calling on voters to vote the SDP into parliament to ensure that the government gets its priorities right.
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