As the election to the Bukit Batok single member seat approaches, opposition SDP candidate Chee Soon Juan sharpened criticism of PAP saying the party did not do enough to ensure welfare of the constituents.
"If PAP keeps talking about People's Association, and involving the RCs and so on and so forth, then no, I don't think they have done a very good job," Chee, the Secretary-General of Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), said, according to the Online Citizen.
Chee is pitted against the Peoples' Action Party's Murali Pillai. PAP candidate David Ong had won the Bukit Batok seat in a landslide in the last general election.
Chee pointed to the repeated incidents of suicides in Bukit Batok to prove his point that the welfare sector needed a revamp.
He said there were two suicides in the constituency in the last four weeks, which proves that the elderly are not cared for and a lot of senior citizens are scared of dying alone.
He said it took another by-election for the ruling party to revisit the situation of the elderly in the region and talk about their welfare.
"However how many years PAP have been running this estate and talking about elderly and poor and then you wait until by-election and then you say you want to take care of the elderly and poor? What happen to the work that you have been putting in?," Chee asked.
Chee pointed out that as much as $1 billion is given away to people's associations for welfare programmes. He asked the ruling party how this huge amount is spent. "... It is no small change, what have you been doing with this money when elderly suicides continue to go up?"
