<*> Free And Free <*><*><*> Pay And Pay <*>

Neo Chai Chin

chaichin@mediacorp.com.sg

In order to reiterate the importance of adequate coverage [who covers for him ?  emplOyer ? persOnal ?], Mr Khaw said in his latest blog post yesterday that his operation, at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), was mostly paid for by MediShield and a private Shield supplement, while Medisave helped in the co-payment of the rest of his hospital bill. 

According to figures on the Ministry of Health website, the bill for heart bypass surgery is less than $30,000 for nine in 10 patients staying in an A class ward in NHCS.

Those covered under MediShield — a basic insurance scheme for CPF members — can choose to top up their basic coverage by supplementing it with plans from private insurers, while Medisave allows members to dip into its accounts to pay for hospitalisation expenses.

Recounting a recent meeting with health insurers, Mr Khaw also flagged the possibility of extending MediShield to cover mental illness, congenital illness and neonatal treatment.

Mr Raymond Fernando, whose wife suffers from schizophrenia, told MediaCorp such a move would “greatly help in relieving my financial burden… and, hopefully, lead to other insurers taking the cue”. It could also reduce the stigma of mental illnes and encourage more patients to come forward, said Mr Fernando.

Another idea f loated during Mr Khaw’s meeting with the health insurers was to raise the MediShield claim limits on outpatient cancer care, which stand at $300 per weekly treatment cycle and up to $2,800 for radiotherapy treatment.

Mr Khaw added that there was also discussion on raising the monthly payout for ElderShield — a severe disability insurance scheme — to extend the monthly basic payout of $400 and to extend the payout period beyond six years.

SINGAPORE — Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan paid only $8 from his pocket for his heart bypass in May.

A million protest pensions plan as fuel shortages bite

A million protest pensions plan as fuel shortages bite

PARIS (AFP) - – Strikes threatening to paralyse France's economy looked set to rumble on into Wednesday after a million people took to the street for their right to retire at 60 and fuel shortages began to bite.

Clashes erupted between youths and riot police in several towns Tuesday and shops in the city of Lyon were looted as workers and students came out in force around the country to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular reform.

Sarkozy refused to back down however and leading unions in some sectors including airports called for stoppages to continue on Wednesday, while oil refineries remained blocked, hit by a week of strikes.

The DGAC aviation authority said a quarter of flights from Orly, Paris's second-biggest airport, would be cancelled on Wednesday morning but did not detail further disruption at the main hub, Charles de Gaulle.

Facts: France's biggest demos

Around one in three flights at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and regional airports were cancelled on Tuesday, while one in three filling stations ran out of fuel, the government said.

The latest day of protests, the sixth since September, drew around 1.1 million people onto the streets, police said, slightly fewer than the 1.23 million on the last comparable day, October 12.

The CGT, France's biggest union, told AFP it estimated overall turnout at 3.5 million, equal to its estimate for October 12. Unions' estimates have habitually been several times higher than those of police.

With more than 200 protests on Tuesday, all 12 French oil refineries shut down by strikes and truckers blocking roads, Sarkozy instructed the cabinet to draw up a plan to stop France grinding to a standstill.

Environment and Transport Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said that "a little under 4,000 petrol stations are awaiting deliveries." There are around 12,500 filling stations in France.

French fuel and heating federation FF3C said the "extremely worrying" situation "should definitely be called a shortage", while the International Energy Agency said France has "sufficient stocks" to deal with the situation.

Authorities in Normandy requisitioned 12 petrol stations for use by rescue and emergency services, while Prime Minister Francois Fillon said a third of departments or local administrations were experiencing fuel shortages.

Fillon chaired a meeting with several ministers and oil industry officials on how to deal with the crisis and ministers later held talks with Sarkozy.

Fillon's office said the government would ensure access to fuel depots, many of which are blocked by strikers, and that distributors would pool their fuel and trucks to help needy stations.

The interior minister promised tough action as clashes erupted anew outside a secondary school in Nanterre, near Paris, where youths burned a car and threw rocks at riot police for the second day in a row.

Police fired tear gas and arrested nine youth protestors in Lyon who had overturned cars and set one alight. At least five shops were later looted, police said.

Nine people were arrested Tuesday in Paris, police said.

The ministry said that 1,158 troublemakers had been arrested at demonstrations since the start of the week, 163 of them on Tuesday morning.

The powerful CGT union's transport section called for their strike action to be renewed on Wednesday, encompassing airport staff, air traffic controllers, public transport workers and employees of national railways operator SNCF.

Unions want to force Sarkozy to abandon a bill to raise the minimum retirement age to 62, which is in the final days of its journey through a parliament in which the right-wing leader enjoys a comfortable majority.

Most French back the current protests, with a poll published Monday in the popular Le Parisien daily showing that 71 percent of those asked expressed either support or sympathy for the movement.

A poll published Tuesday showed that Sarkozy's approval rating dropped this month to its lowest in three years at 30 percent, two percentage points less than when the main pension protests started in September.

The problems that ‘voluntourism’ bring

Leong Wee Keat

weekeat@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

Increasingly, for-profit organisations are paid by clients to arrange a trip which includes a small component of volunteerism. This can range between a few hours and a few days or weeks. But “many problems” have emerged from such a trend, including the blurring of lines between money making and volunteerism, said a research paper.

The paper was authored by Assistant Professor Caroline Brassard, Professor Margaret Sherraden and Mr Benjamin Lough, who shared their findings yesterday at the International Volunteer Cooperation Organisations conference here.

The authors, who interviewed nine volunteer organisations here, including the Singapore International Foundation and Mercy Relief [SIFMR], noted that the travel agents report that their clients would sometimes request a specific project that may not be meaningful to the host community and may even create a negative impact.

The study added that some non-profit organisations are targeting “elite students” from top junior colleges, with one group quoted as saying that this is to allow the pupils “to see poverty”.

Habitat for Humanity national director Yong Teck Meng said his experiences with for profit groups have not been satisfactory.

Recently, his group was approached by an eco-tourism agency which misrepresented the costs of a project in Thailand by half.

In some cases, the research paper said, travel agencies create their own non-government organisation abroad and combine moneymaking with volunteerism.— The desire to help the less fortunate in the region has resulted in a tussle between two groups of do-gooders — the non-profit organisations and their for profit counterparts such as travel agents.

In  TAIWAN  and  SHANGHAI

DIAL-A-CAB  frOm  anywhere  is

FREE

Acting Minister for Information

and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew

— Yesto CRC’s suggestions

“These investigations are in progress, and disciplinary action will be taken, if and where found appropriate,” said the statement.

services ranged from $2,600 to $60,000. As an

>> Continued from Page 1

SLA deputy director, Koh’s level of approval allowed payments to be made to these supposed shell companies.

Koh was posted back to IDA in March. He resigned on June 1.

Meanwhile, Lim left SLA on May 1, returned to IDA and then went on no-pay leave.

He has been suspended from duty.

The fraud was detected during a review of contracts in June, when SLA’s finance department generated a listing of expenditure for review by the department heads. The new department head who replaced Koh detected the irregular payments, and SLA reported the matter to the Police.

“We did not go public any earlier, as police investigations including the tracing of assets were on-going. Investigations against Koh are only now largely completed,” said an SLA spokesperson.

Yesterday, the Prosecution filed 12 charges of concealing criminal proceeds against Koh, who has been in remand since June 25, as he has been unable to post bail of $1.5 million. His case will be mentioned again on Oct 19.

If convicted of cheating, he could be jailed up to 10 years and fined on each count.

For concealing criminal proceeds, he could be jailed up to seven years and fined up to $500,000 for each charge.

While the sum involved could be the largest yet, there have been higher-ranking civil servants accused of fraud.

In 1993, Yeo Seng Teck, then chief executive officer of the Trade Development Board, was investigated for offences dating back to 1988.

He was found to have used forged documents to cheat the organisations he was with, for the purchase of Chinese antiques worth about $2 million. He was convicted for cheating offences and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.

Additional reporting by Zul Othman

While the authority said it “had in place finance and procurement processes which were in accordance with Government guidelines”, Koh and Lim are suspected of scheming together with the businesses, “thus enabling them to circumvent the checks and balances in the processes”.

Koh Seah Wee (picture), a former deputy director of SLA’s technology and infrastructure department, and ex-manager Christopher Lim Chai Meng are purported to have rendered false invoices for fictitious IT maintenance services and goods which were not delivered.

SINGAPORE — In what could be the biggest fraud case in the Civil Service, two individuals are suspected to have conspired with several others to cheat the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) of almost $12 million over a two-year period.