On a good month, the Singaporean widower takes home S$400 to his four young children -- a pittance in a country where the average household income is nearly S$5000.

"Lately, there's been less work," said 35-year-old Ah Loh, known only by his nickname. "Before it was $500-$700. Now, the economy's bad."

His plight is a far cry from the images of glittering shopping malls, scrumptious restaurants and scrupulously clean streets that most visitors see of wealthy Singapore.

He has a rented roof over his head. His elderly mother cares for the children in her own cramped, squalid apartment. Public donations pay for the children's education.

Like others in similar straits, there are no unemployment cheques for Ah Loh in the city state of four million where the jobless rate has hit its highest in 15 years. Ah Loh has to survive on his own.

"If there were people helping, it would be better. Without help, the pressures are high," Ah Loh said in Hokkien, the most common Chinese dialect spoken in Singapore.

Singapore's government has long rejected the notion of a welfare state, preferring short-term incentives to those in need to avoid building a reliance on government handouts.

Families shoulder part of the responsibility and more than 260 private welfare organisations take up the slack, some with the aid of public money.

But Singapore's do-it-yourself mentality is facing its toughest test to date as the economy experiences its worst recession in 40 years, raising questions about the extent to which the government should go to help those in need.

A rapidly ageing population raises longer-term issues about pressures building on the welfare state.

"The Asian economic boom helped to postpone the need to have government giving more direct welfare paycheques," said Associate Professor Ngiam Tee Liang, head of the National University of Singapore's social work and psychology department.

"This is a new phase we're entering. How can the government provide for the safety net of people when the economic pillar is not strong and the family and community pillar is also getting weakened?"

LENDING A HAND, NOT A CHEQUE

Aware of a rising call for help as thousands lose their jobs, the state decentralised and delegated social service functions last April to several Community Development Councils to try to identify those in need sooner.

It introduced short-term cash schemes, in the hundreds of dollars, but emphasised that Singaporeans would have to stand on their own feet.

"It's lending a hand to help Singaporeans in need...not to weaken their spirit to help themselves," Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said.

For 72-year-old Poh Ah Poh and her sister Ah Keok, S$3 worth of vegetables will feed them for two days.

The fresh greens are a luxury for the unmarried and illiterate sisters who have a monthly income of S$300 from Ah Poh's part-time work as a cleaner.

They began working menial jobs from a young age and live in a tiny rented studio.

"We live day by day," Ah Keok, 70, said in Hokkien.

The elderly pair did not come to the attention of a charity group or get temporary government aid until late last year.

They had exhausted their life savings five years ago when Ah Keok needed major surgery.

Singaporeans have to put away 36 percent of their salary in the Central Provident Fund (CPF), a mandatory savings scheme to finance medical bills and retirement.

State supports comes into play once a person's CPF has been exhausted. But handouts do not come easily.

"We are careful, however, to keep the eligibility for government assistance stringent so as not to encourage an entitlement mentality," the Ministry of Community Development said in a written reply to a Reuters question.

The government gave 2400 people just S$5.8 million in 2000 under a lone scheme which provides long-term assistance.

The long-ruling People's Action Party's anti-handout stance is also clear from government spending patterns.

Singapore spent almost S$10 billion, or 36 percent of its fiscal 2002 expenditure, on defence and internal security. Community development and sports, which covers welfare support, was just 2.3 percent of overall public expenditure at $648 million.

DO YOUR PART

The government prods its citizens to volunteer as community helpers to lighten society's load.

But with most of the fast-paced population chasing ambitions to own cars, condominiums, good careers and other trappings of a good life, the volunteer rate is just 9.3 percent.

The emphasis of any handout is to get Singaporeans back into the workforce as quickly as possible.

"We try and get the family member who is able to work to find a job...to become financially independent after the period of assistance," said Lian Tiong Thye, social services manager of the Central Singapore community council.

But short-term assistance may not do the trick for the bulk of Singapore's needy, who are elderly, handicapped or families whose breadwinners are unable to work.

"The assistance is all mainly short-term. There is nothing to guarantee that they could go onto stable conditions," social worker Patricia Kong said. "They need to have some additional family planning, budgeting skills. Most are very lowly educated."

The community councils, tasked as one-stop solution centres, also have plenty to do apart from helping those who have fallen on hard times.

Emphasis has been placed on programmes to promote racial harmony after the arrest of 13 suspected Muslim militants with alleged links to the al Qaeda network. The centres also assist with job placements.

"They have to take care of the whole community under them...and they have to perform these direct welfare services. They are very torn in terms of manpower," said one senior social worker who did not want to be named.

Some, struggling to make ends meet, have resigned themselves to their lot.

"I don't hope for very much," Ah Loh said. "I just want the kids to be able to take care of themselves."

                                                            Home