Sir, in December, TikTok user ruggerbud47, calculated how many McSpicy burgers his NSF allowance could buy and compared it to previous batches at the same rank. The answer: fewer. Despite nominal increases, NSF purchasing power has fallen. Every NSF watching understood it instantly.
From July 2025, the Progressive Wage Model sets a floor of $1,910 a month for a cleaner — with full CPF. A second-year NSF corporal in a combat vocation earns $1,035 a month — with zero CPF. The Government has decided, through its own flagship policy, that the dignified wage floor for cleaning a building is nearly twice what it pays a soldier to defend the nation. I say, both deserve 1.9k.
In 2024, my colleague Gerald Giam proposed raising NSF allowances to at least the Local Qualifying Salary of $1,600 — with CPF contributions. Senior Minister of State Heng Chee How replied that NS is "a duty, not employment." But SAF regulars serve the same duty — with market salaries and full CPF. If duty and employment were mutually exclusive, we could not have a professional army.
By their second year, NSFs are fully trained and operationally deployed — manning posts, running day-to-day operations, performing similar tasks as regulars. They should be paid accordingly.
Raising second-year NSF allowances to the new LQS of $1,800 with employer CPF would cost approximately $160 million a year — under one percent of a $25 billion defence budget.
I ask the Minister: the Government considers $1,910 a month the minimum dignified wage for a cleaner. Will MINDEF commit to at least the LQS of $1,800 for second-year NSFs?
