Nice bod. Good for pumping and dumping.

Charlene The Charlatan

她...我可以

S$500 CDC Vouchers brought forward to June; Cost-of-Living Special Payment up by S$200 to ease pressures

[SINGAPORE] Singapore will bring forward the disbursement of the next tranche of S$500 in CDC Vouchers for eligible households to June this year – from the original target of January 2027 – and increase payouts under the Cost-of-Living Special Payment. These are part of efforts to ease cost pressures amid uncertainty from the Iran war.

Senior Minister of State for Finance Jeffrey Siow said on Tuesday (Apr 7) that the Cost-of-Living Special Payment will be increased by S$200 for all eligible Singaporeans, bringing the total payout to between S$400 and S$600 per person.

This special payment, which was announced during the Budget statement in February, is a one-off cash payout for Singaporeans aged 21 and above in 2026. 

To qualify, recipients’ assessable income must not exceed S$100,000; they should also own no more than one property, and must reside in Singapore. 

The amount received will depend on their income and the annual value of their residence.

About 2.4 million Singaporeans are expected to receive the additional cash support, which will be disbursed in September, said Siow, who is also acting minister for transport, during a ministerial statement in Parliament on the impact of the Middle East situation.

“We are tracking the prices of food and other essential goods and services very closely. So far, rising fuel prices have not yet percolated into wider price increases across the economy,” added Siow, who had earlier outlined support measures for Singapore’s transport and business sectors.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged that given the heightened uncertainty in the Middle East, it is “still too early to make reliable updated projections of inflation in Singapore”, or to quantify the full impact on households.

“But we know the situation has amplified cost-of-living anxieties for Singaporeans,” he noted.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/singapore/economy-policy/s500-cdc-vouchers-brought-forward-june-cost-living-special-payment-s200-ease-pressures

Fatal Chinatown accident: Woman charged with causing death of 6-year-old girl; gag order issued

SINGAPORE - The car driver who allegedly caused an accident in Chinatown on Feb 6 that left a six-year-old girl dead and her mother seriously injured was charged on April 8.

Accompanied by her husband, the woman, 38, arrived at the State Courts around 8.25am.

She was handed two charges.

One was for driving without due care and attention, causing the death of the girl, and the other for driving without due care and attention, causing grievous hurt to the girl’s 31-year-old mother.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Vishnu Menon had asked for the case to be adjourned for six weeks as investigations into the case remain ongoing.

The case has been fixed for a pre-trial conference on May 13.

Mr Vishnu did not object to the defence’s application for a gag order to be imposed under the Children and Young Persons Act, as the woman’s son was in the car at the time of the incident and is a potential witness.

Said the prosecutor: “Due to her relationship with the child, the gag order for his protection must extend to her as well.”

The woman’s lawyer, Mr Navin Thevar, had argued that the gag order was necessary to protect her six-year-old son from the glare of unwanted public scrutiny and further embarrassment.

“The dangers and risks are particularly acute in the circumstances of the present case because there have been many (online) posts against my client and the boy, which are not only untrue, but are of a xenophobic nature,” said Mr Navin.

The woman is accused of failing to keep a proper lookout while making a right turn as she exited the open-space carpark in Spring Street in Chinatown at 11.50am.

As a result, she allegedly collided with both pedestrians who were crossing the street near the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

Sheyna Lashira Smaradiani and her mother, Ms Raisha Anindra Pascasiswi, who are Indonesians, were taken to the hospital. They were holidaying in Singapore when the accident happened.

Sheyna was pronounced dead at the hospital and her remains were repatriated to Indonesia on Feb 8 and buried that day in south Jakarta.

Ms Raisha has since been discharged.

Those who drive without due care and attention, causing death, can be jailed for up to three years, fined up to $10,000, or both.

If convicted of driving without due care and attention, causing grievous hurt, an offender can be jailed for up to two years, fined up to $5,000, or both.

The offender also faces disqualification from driving all classes of vehicles.

Road traffic fatalities are at a 10-year high, with 149 such deaths recorded in 2025 compared with 141 in 2016.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/fatal-chinatown-accident-woman-charged-with-causing-death-of-6-year-old-girl-injuring-mother

PropertyLimBrothers’ media arm lays off 90% of staff as realtors exit

Embattled property agency PropertyLimBrothers (PLB) is laying off employees from its media arm, less than three months after allegations about an extramarital affair between two senior executives thrust the firm into the spotlight.

PLB Media employed close to 100 staff as at February, and City & Country understands about 90% of staff were affected in this retrenchment exercise.

City & Country understands PLB has gutted its editorial, tech, video and overseas teams, which are under PLB Media. These employees provided research, marketing and social media support for the agency’s realtors.

Some 90% of PLB Media’s video team, which had close to 50 staff, were affected in this retrenchment exercise.

City & Country understands that affected employees were informed via meetings with human resource (HR) executives, which began last week.

One affected employee was told to either voluntarily resign or be retrenched, and was given two days to decide. This employee tells City & Country that the retrenchment package offered a week’s salary for each year they had worked at PLB.

Another affected employee says staff who resigned were also offered the retrenchment package. In addition, they will be allowed to keep their company-provided devices and will receive a recommendation letter for their job search.

In late-January, rumours circulated online that PLB co-founder Melvin Lim and then-vice-president of strategy Grayce Tan were involved in an extramarital affair.

Both Lim and Tan are married.

City & Country has contacted PLB co-founder Adrian Lim and interim CEO Marc Chan for more information.

PLB had 79 registered agents at Feb 5. City & Country understands realtors have left PLB for other agencies in recent months. PLB's 50:50 realtor commission sharing scheme is higher compared to other agencies, and PLB likely faced a drop in revenue as a result.

PLB’s retrenchment package below the norm

Under the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment, employers are expected to pay a retrenchment benefit of between two weeks’ to one month’s salary per year of service, in line with the “prevailing norm”.

In unionised companies where the amount of retrenchment benefit is stated in the collective agreement, the “norm” is one month’s salary for each year of service. However, retrenchment benefits are not mandated by law.

The advisory was last updated in January 2023 by tripartite partners the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF).

Not mandating retrenchment benefits is a “balanced approach” that provides business flexibility while protecting workers, said Senior Minister of State for Manpower and Health Koh Poh Koon in February.

The following month, during the debate on MOM’s budget, Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said his ministry is reviewing suggestions to make advance retrenchment notifications mandatory, as part of a broader look at the Employment Act.

Currently, employers with at least 10 employees must inform MOM within five working days of any employee being informed of their retrenchment.

In 2024, e-commerce firm Lazada apologised after it laid off staff — including regional C-suite executives — from its Singapore office without notifying and consulting the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU). The FDAWU is an affiliated union of NTUC.

The Edge Singapore reported that staff who were laid off by Lazada Singapore were offered two weeks' pay for each year that they were employed by the company, below the industry norm.

https://www.theedgesingapore.com/cityandcountry/singapore-news/propertylimbrothers-media-arm-lays-90-staff-realtors-exit

成和体统!!!! Which town council has been sleeping on the job for a whole decade???

Red flags aplenty on Miss Joanne. Can you spot them? ;)