Singapore’s Cabinet Calls Out Fake Fiscal Surplus Claims
It seems the Singapore Ministry of Finance (MOF) has finally snapped on Mr Yeoh Lam Keong, the former GIC chief economist, who has been juggling banknotes in Facebook posts like a magician showing off a trick that never really worked.
What’s the fuss?
Yeoh went on two separate Facebook posts on Nov 7 to insist that the Government holds a $30 billion structural surplus ready for immediate spending. That claim is a straight‑up lie. Twice thereafter, the alternative news outlet The Independent Singapore repeated Yeoh’s fanciful brag in articles dated Nov 9 and Nov 12. Thus, the Ministry stepped in with a stunning correction.
How the correction works
- The MOF instructed the POFMA Office to direct both Yeoh and The Independent to put a notice on the original posts. The notice must link to the Government’s own clarification, but the content itself remains online.
- No criminal punishment will follow. Yeoh and the publisher need only add the notice—no takedown or editing required.
And yes, the notice is now live. That’s all for the first correction round. But wait… this is actually the second time in five weeks that Yeoh has been nipped in the bud by POFMA. The first time was on Oct 14, when he made false statements over the Housing Development Board’s deficits and Singapore’s reserves.
So, why is the Government so tense?
The answer is simple: fiscal caution is a Singapore staple. The MOF points out that, aside from 2020’s pandemic spike, the country averages a yearly fiscal surplus of $2.2 billion. That figure is the baseline for how much room is truly available. Exceeding that boundary means dipping into past reserves—money the next generation has counted on—without the President’s thumbs‑up.
A brief primer on reserves
- Reserves = Total assets – liabilities, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) official foreign reserves.
- Official foreign reserves grow only when global monetary policy stays loose. With central banks tightening worldwide, the growth rate of reserves is set to slow.
Yeoh’s belief that future reserves would swell by a tidy $50–$100 billion per year for the next decade was deemed speculative and misleading. This stance is particularly misleading because it ignores the fact that increased foreign reserves often come with proportional liability upswing.
And the “high net investment returns” myth?
Yeoh also championed the idea that rising balances of payments would bring “higher net investment returns,” giving the MOF a “fair chance” to skip a GST hike. The Ministry notes:
- Past five years: net investment returns contributed about 3.5 % of GDP.
- In the future, returns are expected to slow due to geopolitics, climate, and aging populations.
- Thus, relying only on these returns won’t keep pace with increasing government spending.
In short, the Government is basically saying: “We can’t keep printing money from past reserves or expecting a billion-dollar influx from the next decade. We need fresh revenue streams to cover spending.”
Wrap‑up
The MOF’s corrections, clear `note` style, keep the public in the loop without pulling the entire article. That’s a win-win—sort of like getting a coffee refill instead of a fresh cup. And it just might remind our fiscal forecasters that you can’t treat taxes like an expensive pop‑up advertisement; they’re a serious business—just not to be taken lightly.
