Playing Ping Pong with the Wall



My second brother died of heart attack on the 4th of March, 1997. A year later, my nephew went to Singapore to enquire about the procedures for the release of my brother’s Central Provident Fund as he had worked there before.

One month later, my nephew received a letter dated 4th May 1998 from Madam Rozi Isahak of the Withdraw Branch of the Fund Board to ask him to furnish the names, the Identity Card Numbers and the current addresses of the deceased’s siblings.

Later, after another one and a half months , my nephew was served a reminder letter dated 22nd Jun 1998 from the same lady, as he was slow in his reply to the earlier letter.

My nephew then had to act fast to send the certified copies of the birth certificates of my deceased brother and mine with a cover letter dated 16th July, 1998 to prove my relationship with the deceased.

Within two weeks, I received a letter from the Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore dated 31st July to ask me to complete an enclosed form CPF-D(1) and at the same time to make a Statutory Declaration before a Notary Public(a Notary Public is a person, especially a lawyer, with official authority to be a WITNESS when somebody signs a document and to make this document valid in law). I was further instructed in the letter to get a Notary Public to certify true the photocopies of my Identity Card and bank statement.

I went down to Kuala Lumpur to see my sister. She introduced me to a prominent lawyer friend of her who was a Notary Public to witness and certify my documents.

The next day,I quickly sent the documents in an AR registered letter dated 12th September 1998. In the same month I received an acknowledgement letter dated 30th September 1998 in a registered post. Attached with the letter was my original bank statement.

By November, I received a bank draft of S$1172.96 in a registered post dated 20th Nov 1998 from the Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore. I returned the money to my eldest brother as my second brother had borrowed quite a big sum of money from him before.

From my dealing with the Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore, I noticed that the Board had acted in a speedy, accurate and no nonsense manner. When we were slow in our reply, the Board would send us a reminder. Every letter sent out by the Board was in a registered post; there was no question of the letter not received by the recipient. Apart from that, all the documents had to be either witnessed or certified by a Notary Public. The bank statement which I assumed unimportant was also returned to me in registered post.

I would like to draw an analogy of my dealing with the Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore. It is like me playing ping pong with the wall. Every time when I strike the ball against the wall, it bounces back immediately. The wall reacts spontaneously to every stroke of mine without fail. I can never beat the wall. Neither can I beat the efficiency of the Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore.