Chee rebuts Vivian's comments, Latest Singapore News - The New Paper
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Chee rebuts Vivian's comments

This article is more than 12 months old

Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan yesterday fired back at comments made by the People's Action Party's Vivian Balakrishnan.

On Tuesday, Dr Balakrishnan had called the SDP's policy prescriptions "tax and spend programmes" that would put Singapore on the road to Greece.

Yesterday, Dr Chee said: "The criticism from Dr Balakrishnan is reminiscent of the one he made in the 2011 GE about our proposal to raise taxes for top earners, those in the top 1 per cent.

"In 2015, however, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that the Government would raise taxes for the top 5 per cent of earners. It seems that Mr Tharman did exactly what Dr Balakrishnan attacked the SDP for."

Dr Chee also said he did not kick Mr Chiam See Tong, his former mentor, out of the SDP - a claim that was made by Dr Balakrishnan's teammate, Ms Sim Ann, on Tuesday.

"Mr Chiam's situation with me, we've resolved it. We invited him to our 35th anniversary dinner recently. I never ousted Mr Chiam. It's on record. Mr Chiam said so himself, that he had all these problems with his colleagues even before I joined the SDP," said Dr Chee. - The Straits Times

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