I LIKE MY BISHOPS to talk about God rather than Government but when Bishop Joseph Zen accuses the government of 'bullying those who can be bullied' by cutting back on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance payments, I shall excuse him for letting his message stray from God again.
The rebuttal from the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Yeoh Eng-kiong, to wit that the 11 per cent cut endorsed by the Executive Council this week represents only a trimming back of payments in line with deflation, certainly needs questioning.
Yes, it is true that prices on the composite consumer price index have fallen by 13.7 per cent since they peaked in May 1998 and that any dollar of CSSA payment goes further now than it did then. Let us note, however, that these indices also show a greater drop in prices for the higher income brackets (14.1 per cent) than for the lower ones (12.4 per cent).
And then let us look more closely at some characteristic prices for the sorts of things that the wealthiest people buy. The cost of computers has fallen by almost half since May 1998, car prices have fallen by 28.9 per cent, private housing rents by 24.4 per cent and entertainment toys by 17.8 per cent.
Now let us do the same for some characteristic things on which CSSA recipients spend their money. School fees, a big hit for single parents, have risen by 11 per cent over the period while medical fees and the cost of proprietary medicines, a big hit for the elderly, have also risen rather than fallen and there have been few real savings in public transport fares.
You would do well, Mr Yeoh, to refine your calculations of how much deflation has really brought down the cost of living for CSSA recipients, even assuming that they can live reasonably on the existing payments, a big assumption.
And if it were your intent that the change in their incomes be linked to wages paid to labourers who might be their closest equivalents among the employed, you may also wish to consider that the Government's own figures say these wages are in fact holding up remarkably well.