We assure the public that informal workers and self-employed persons who are eligible for Workfare Income Supplements (WIS) will receive WIS as long as they make contributions for the current year. They are not required to fully pay up any past arrears, before receiving WIS.

In Mr Lim's mother's case, she had made Medisave contributions for work done last year. She was therefore paid WIS in January this year, and will receive her second WIS payment in May. She will continue to receive WIS in future if she carries on working and contributes to her Medisave.

We are sorry for the confusion caused by our assessment of Mr Lim's mother's Medi-

save liability for work done from 2003 to 2006. She had indicated that she had worked since 2003, but no income was declared for the period before last year. As a result, the board preliminarily assessed her Medisave liability based on an annual income of $9,000. We have since established that she earned an annual income below $6,000 for the period 2003 to 2006. Hence, she is not required to make any Medisave contributions for those years.

The board is taking steps to ensure that WIS recipients in a situation similar to Mr Lim's mother will not encounter such a problem in future.

We thank Mr Lim for his feedback.

Teoh See Leong
Director (Agency & Self-Employed Persons Division)
Central Provident Fund Board