SINGAPORE: About 20,000 people in Singapore received incorrect subsidies and grants due to a processing error in the government’s means-testing system, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on 22 July.
MOH, which oversees the Household Means Eligibility System (Homes), stated that the issue resulted in over-payments of about S$7 million for around 90 per cent of affected individuals.
The remaining group experienced shortfalls amounting to about S$2 million.
On 21 July, MOH disclosed that Homes had encountered a processing issue that caused the miscalculations.
Individuals who received excess subsidies or grants will not need to return the additional amounts.
Those who received less than they were entitled to will have the outstanding amounts topped up by government agencies by November.
Homes relies on income information from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) to conduct means-testing for selected government subsidy schemes, especially for self-employed individuals with business income.
For the 2025 year of assessment, IRAS’ tax filing notifications began in mid-January, instead of the usual December start.
This change aimed to ensure that full-year CPF contributions were captured accurately.
However, during this period, Homes’ system logic failed to include business income for some individuals.
This caused inaccurate means-testing for these people and their households between 1 and 27 January, 2025.
MOH said Homes was first alerted to the problem on 13 January after a member of the public raised a query when applying for subsidies.
This triggered an investigation that led to the identification of the processing fault.
MOH added that it is working to improve the design of Homes to strengthen integration and coordination with other agencies.
In 2019, a similar incident saw about 7,700 people receive inaccurate subsidies after a computer system error affected means-test results for Chas card applicants in September and October 2018.
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