Really, to stay married in this 'everything very expensive' city is not easy. We went through the hard days when my health failed and we were not able to pay our bills.
Do you know when you cannot pay the PUB bills, they will come and turn off the electricity... later a few days... they will come and turn the water level to a trickle. Still cannot pay, then they cut the water.
If you owed the property tax, they will send a letter to your current employer to ask them to deduct from your salary? You get shamed publicly and might lose the job in the end. And as long as you work in any job with CPF contribution, they will track you down. If you choose not to work in such job anymore, next step is they will check if you have any bank accounts and authorized the banks to deduct your money without your permission.
Now the scariest part, if you owed town council, they can issue a warrant of arrest and send armed officers to your house. Then arrest you to force you to go to court. They did that to my mentally ill husband as he was the first owner of our current flat. I have to watch him in cuffs on his hands and legs in court... Hello, did my husband kills someone or steal or rob? We were just not able to pay our town council bills.
Then the judge looked at me, saying my husband did jumped bails a few times and I am his bailor. They checked my identify card then pulled me up to the stand and made me stand trial. I was so stressed by the sudden turn of event, I took out my medication and wanted to swallow all in the court. I remembered the male police officer jeering at me, saying very hurtful words to me. I was lucky that there was a kind female officer who shut him up and talk to me nicely to get the medication away from me. In the end, the judge fined me $100 instead of the bond money of few thousands.
$100 is a lot of money when both couple are not working due to health issues. And my husband was locked up in Changi Prison for 2 days.
All these made me wonders... we were having financial difficulties... but we did not do bad things. Why are we being treated like criminals?
So being poor is a crime in Singapore?
No comments:
Post a Comment