Pensions (Amendment) Bill

Bill No. 6/1995

Read the first time on 1st March 1995.

An Act to amend the Pensions Act (Chapter 225 of the 1985 Revised Edition).

Be it enacted by the President with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Singapore, as follows:

Short title and commencement

1. This Act may be cited as the Pensions (Amendment) Act 1995 and shall be deemed to have come into operation on 1st January 1995.

Amendment of section 7

2. Section 7 of the Pensions Act is amended by deleting the words “section 16” in subsections (3)(a)(ii) and (4)(b) and substituting in each case the words “section 16(2A)”.

Amendment of section 8

3. Section 8(2) of the Pensions Act is amended by inserting, immediately after the words “Public Service Commission” in the second line, the words “, Legal Service Commission, Education Service Commission or the Police and Civil Defence Services Commission, as the case may be,”.

Amendment of section 16

4. Section 16 of the Pensions Act is amended —

(a)

by deleting paragraph (a) of subsection (1) and substituting the following paragraphs:

“(a)

in the case of an officer holding a pensionable office who has not exercised an option mentioned in section 3(2), of an amount equal to one of the following capital sums:

(i)	where the officer has attained the minimum age at the time of his death — an amount ascertained by multiplying the relevant commutation factor by the amount of such pension that may have been granted to the officer under this Act if the officer had retired on the date of his death in the circumstances described in section 7(2)(c); or
(ii)	where the officer has not attained the minimum age at the time of his death — the amount ascertained in accordance with sub-paragraph (i), from which amount there shall be a discount at the relevant discount rate in respect of each year or part thereof falling between the date of his death and the date he would have attained his minimum age had he not died (both dates inclusive),

but such gratuity shall in no case be less than one year’s pensionable emoluments;

(aa)

in the case of a Gurkha serving in the Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force, of an amount equal to ¹/₁₂₀ of one year’s pensionable emoluments for each complete month of service but such gratuity shall not be less than one year’s or more than 3 years’ pensionable emoluments;”;

(b)

by inserting, immediately after the words “of his retirement,” in the second line of subsection (2), the words “or where a retired officer, being an officer who opted under any regulations made under this Act to receive a full pension without any gratuity and whose pension had been suspended pursuant to section 7(4), dies within one year of his pension taking effect,”;

(c)

by inserting, immediately after subsection (2), the following subsection:

“(2A) Notwithstanding subsection (2), where an officer whose pension, gratuity or other allowance is suspended pursuant to section 7(4) dies before his pension, gratuity or allowance takes effect (whether or not within one year of his retirement), there shall be paid to such of his dependants as the President may think fit, or if there are no dependants, to his legal personal representative, a gratuity of an amount ascertained by multiplying the relevant commutation factor by the amount of such pension that may have been granted to the officer under this Act, from which amount there shall be a discount at the relevant discount rate in respect of each year or part thereof falling between the date he would have attained his minimum age had he not died and the date of his death (both dates inclusive), but such gratuity shall in no case be less than one year’s pensionable emoluments.”;

(d)

by deleting the words “or (2)” in the second line of subsection (3) and substituting the words “, (2) or (2A)”;

(e)

by deleting the full-stop at the end of the definition of “commuted annual allowance gratuity” in subsection (4) and substituting a semi-colon, and by inserting immediately thereafter the following definitions:

“ “commutation factor” means 175.14 or such other factor as the President, by order in the Gazette, prescribes in variation thereof;

“discount rate” means 5 per cent or such other rate as the President, by order in the Gazette, prescribes in variation thereof;

“minimum age” has the same meaning given to it by section 7(5);

“pensionable emoluments”, in relation to an officer who had exercised an option mentioned in section 3(2), means his pensionable emoluments at the date immediately prior to his option taking effect;

“relevant commutation factor” and “relevant discount rate”, in relation to an officer or a retired officer, mean the commutation factor and discount rate, respectively, in force on either the date of the officer’s death or his appointment to the public service in Singapore, whichever is the more favourable; and for this purpose, all officers appointed to the public service in Singapore before 1st January 1995 shall be deemed to be appointed to the public service in Singapore on that date.”; and

(f)

by inserting, immediately after subsection (4), the following subsection:

“(5) This section shall apply to all officers appointed to the public service in Singapore, whether appointed before or after 1st April 1986.”.

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