Tapping reserves doesn't mean breaking piggy bank: SM Goh

The funds will only be used during exceptional crisis and not to support welfare

(SINGAPORE) The government will dip into the country's reserves only in times of exceptional crisis - and will not use them to support welfare and other programmes, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said yesterday.

And tapping Singapore's reserves to help the country ride out the current economic crisis is not equivalent to breaking the piggy bank, he said.

'To break the piggy bank is to allow all the coins and notes to spill out, which means no control over the expenditure,' he explained. 'We did not break the piggy bank. We've asked permission for the president to use his second key for us to take a bit of the reserves out of the safe.'

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