New announcement for even higher Minsiters' pay...
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Poor people stay together ... behind.Originally posted by Gordonator:
Elites, move ahead.
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Emperor LKY says they deserves Minister pay increase, taken from sinkie's pocket.
S'pore cannot afford "revolving door" style of govt: MM Lee
By Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 04 April 2007 1918 hrs
SYDNEY: Singapore cannot afford to have a "revolving door" style of government where top leaders change every five years.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said the country needs good, competent people who will stay.
And this is why they must be paid market rates.
Mr Lee was speaking to reporters in Sydney at the end of his visit to Australia and New Zealand.
From parliamentary secretaries to ministers, the top level in the civil service is paid a total of S$46 million annually.
That is 0.13 percent of the total government expenditure or 0.022 percent of GDP.
=> Then why when it comes to the peasants' pay and helping them, it's always 1 cent too much?
On Monday, the civil service pay review will be announced in Parliament.
The Minister Mentor warned that the Singapore economy would be in jeopardy if it does not pay top dollar for top people.
He said if this S$46 million was cut to maybe S$36 million or S$26 million, the country would save S$20 million but in the process, would jeopardise an economy of S$210 billion.
=> cool. Lee_Con_U is conning u again... color]
"So for the average family earning S$1,500-S$3,000, we are talking of astronomical figures but for people like me in government, to deal with the money which we have accumulated by the sweat of our brow over the last 40 years, you have to pay the market rate or the man will up stakes and join Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs and you would have an incompetent man and you would have lost money by the billions," said Mr Lee.
While other countries may have leaders who are paid less, Mr Lee said rewarding Singapore leaders well is a system that has worked and is above board.
[color=blue]=> How to explain Finland, Sweden, NZ, etc who have much less well paid ministers, but governments that are much less corrupt and people who are enjoying way higher standard of living and solid social welfare leh? Lie also don't how to now!
He said: "If you are going to quarrel about S$46 million – up or down another S$10 to S$20 million – I say you don't have a sense of proportion."
And when it comes to benchmarking, Mr Lee said his own annual income, which is between S$1.2m and S$1.3 million, is a fraction of what the top 20 percent in the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) earn.
=> So where's our money? Used to feed FT fun managers?
And these top people in GIC are the ones making multi-billion dollar investments for Singapore's economy.
He said: "The cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government... your asset values will disappear, your apartments will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other persons' countries - foreign workers."
=> Aren't Sporns already dirt class citizens in own cuntry?
When asked to comment on the perception that political leaders should not be in it for the money, and instead, be ready to make that extra sacrifice for the good of the people, the Minister Mentor said it is an admirable sentiment.
But he added that it had taken much persuasion to get leaders like Dr Ng Eng Hen and Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, who had lucrative private practices, to give it all up to join politics, with no guarantee of success.
=> Got better examples or not huh? -
Frankly, great leaders are those who make sure that the economy can continue to function even if there is a change in leadership.
It's a like a company. When the CEO leaves, does the whole company stop working? No way. In fact the priority of the CEO is to ensure that everything runs smoothly even when she is not around. That the middle managers will hold the fort and galvanise the staff to keep the company functioning with little disruption. That is the mark of a great leader.
Not one who continually tells the staff that the company will be bankrupt or collapse the moment she leaves. -
The silence is finally broken by MM Lee, and his first quotes published in Asiaone.com concerning the dispute over ministerial salary are one that not only mocks Singaporeans for daring to question the VERY HIGH ministerial salaries, it even contains a veiled threat:
It was an 'absurdity', he said, for Singaporeans to quarrel over whether ministers collectively should be paid $10 million or $20 million more, when an economy worth $210 billion was at stake.
Once again MM Lee implies that only the ruling party is capable of good and honest governance; that any other alternative which displaces the ruling party will be incompetent and incapable of stout leadership.
'The cure to all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government,' he said in his first comments on impending salary increases for ministers and top civil servants.
'You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again.'
Singaporeans' asset values would also disappear, he warned, adding that 'your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries'.
Time and again, MM Lee continues to treat us like sheep, constantly reminding us of their success, and the 'absurb' reasons why they should remain in power. That broken record player replaying the same message is fast dying out. As a former firebrand, he is not afraid to make threatening implications should the people decide otherwise.
This pat with right hand, threaten with left fist, is typical of street fighters who adopt the 'good cop, bad cop' approach to a situation. And the only clear insinuation from the old man, with the mentality of a iron-fisted nanny, is that we remain immature to make informed decisions to this day.
His other flawed analogy is this:As Minister Mentor, he said his pay of $2.7 million a year was lower than the $4 million a year that today's top lawyers earned. .............It had taken a lot of persuasion to get three doctors: Ng Eng Hen, Vivian Balakrishnan and Balaji Sadasivan, to leave their lucrative practices to enter politics in 2001. Even with the benchmarks in place, the decision meant huge pay cuts for two of them, he said.
He neglected to mention that only a handful of people earn that said amount above in the private sector, but he likens it to the majority of lawyers instead.
His bottom line: if the Government could not pay competitive salaries, Singapore would not be able to compete and 'we're not going to live well'.
In any case, any lawyer who earns that obscene amount is more than likely working his socks off day and night, be it litigation cases or commercial disputes. So in essence, there is a high value-add contribution to the law firm as a whole.
Is the current S$1.2 million wage + pension too miserly for ministers? If they are grumbling over their meagre salary, then perhaps MM Lee has mistakenly brought in a bunch of mercenaries instead of able-bodied leaders with a passion to serve? -
Catherine Lim has pretty much summed it up:
Be mindful of the affective gap
By Catherine Lim, For The Straits Times
Apr 05, 2007
The Straits Times
I HAVE followed with intense interest the current debate on increasing ministerial salaries to match those of the highest earners in the private sector. And I have noted the impassioned arguments from both sides: the Government insisting on its necessity if top talent is to be recruited to ensure good leadership, and the public expressing its reservations, doubts and unhappiness.
I would like to go beyond the emotion and the rhetoric, and see the issue in the larger context of the PAP model of governance, in particular its special brand of pragmatism in solving problems. It is a hard-boiled pragmatism which even the severest critic will concede has contributed greatly to the Singapore success story. And one which, paradoxically, even the strongest supporter will concede is liable to harden into inflexibility.
In the case of ministerial salaries, the PAP leaders' thinking seems to have gone along these lines: Singapore needs a good, strong government if it is to prosper or even survive. Hence, it needs to recruit top talent. Since there is competition for this from the private sector, it has to offer equally attractive salaries. It has to act quickly and decisively, otherwise the country will face a serious crisis of leadership, which can occur in three increasingly dangerous stages:
Talented people will not be attracted to government service.
Even if they are, they will soon be enticed away by the private sector.
But even if they are not enticed away, they will resort to corruption as compensation for their inadequate salaries, and thus bring ruin to society.
Rounding up the austere dialectic is the urgent plea to doubting Singaporeans: Do you want Singapore to go the way of corrupt societies?
I would like to point out, respectfully, a basic flaw in this rationale. In keeping with the overall, hard-nosed realpolitik that has characterised PAP rule, it fails to take into account the affective factor that is present in any relationship, whether between individuals or ruler and ruled.
This factor comprises that special constellation of emotions, moods, attitudes and ideals which somehow elude being quantified and reduced to monetary terms. I first analysed its role in the relationship between the PAP Government and the people over a decade ago in a political commentary titled The Great Affective Divide, noting the emergence of a serious emotional estrangement despite the country's stability and prosperity.
Subsequently, I variously described the conflict in terms of the people's wish to see a greater role for Heart as opposed to Head, EQ as opposed to IQ, Heartware as opposed to Hardware, etc.
The policy regarding ministerial salaries illustrates this conflict. Its definition of the talent that is eagerly sought as ministerial material does not appear to take into account attributes beyond those of intellect. It assumes that what is good for the corporate world must be good for government, and that therefore there is a common target of talent out there, which both will compete fiercely for.
But in reality, the commonality of talent is only in those attributes of mind and personality such as great intelligence, far-sightedness, boldness of vision, creativity, determination of purpose, etc, that are the hallmarks of today's high achiever. Beyond this overlap, the emotional aspect comes into play.
And here, there is a dramatic parting of ways. For while the ideal political leader is imbued with nobility of purpose and altruistic instincts, the ideal CEO is impelled by the very opposite - raw ambition and ruthless drive. The first set of qualities is desirable for a life of public service; the second would be disastrous.
Indeed, a brilliant achiever without the high purpose of service to others would be the worst possible ministerial material. To see a potential prime minister as no different from a potential top lawyer, and likely to be enticed by the same stupendous salary, would be to blur the lines between two very different domains.
Next, the rationale goes against the very spirit of the social contract that it is supposed to protect. There is a compact, largely implicit, that governs the government-people relationship in every mature society in the free world, and it has as much to do with what is felt deeply in the heart as with what is worked out logically in the head.
By this compact, political leadership is less a salaried job and more a vocation, with all that this implies of selflessness and sacrifice on the part of the leaders, and trust, respect and regard on the part of the people. It is this reciprocity that defines a social compact and confers upon it a sort of sacrosanct quality. The ultimate reward for the leaders, whether or not they consciously seek it, is a revered place in the nation's history, in the hearts and minds of future generations. Hence, material reward is only secondary.
Nevertheless, no Singaporean with any practical sense of the real world would want to see a minister denied a salary commensurate with his status and dignity, or living less well than any prosperous Singaporean. If the average Singaporean still aspires to the famous '5Cs' representing the good life, he is only too happy to see a minister already well in possession of these.
But, at the same time, no Singaporean would expect a minister to feel disgruntled if he is paid less than the top CEO. If the disgruntlement actually causes him to leave his job, then he was not cut out for public office in the first place. Thus, to offer him a matching salary to enable him to stay would be to demean that office.
There is clearly a need to balance material needs and public service. The balance, in the view of many Singaporeans, has already been achieved with the existing ministerial salaries, if benchmarked against those of high-earners across a broad range of professions, and also against the salaries of ministers in countries such as Sweden and New Zealand, consistently ranked among the foremost, corruption-free democracies in the world.
The policy of increasing ministerial salaries may have the effect of upsetting this balance and, more seriously, doing away altogether with the compact of trust and respect. It will create a new affective divide, or reinforce any existing one, between the government and the people, and reduce their relationship to a purely impersonal business contract.
Even in a society often described as aggressively materialistic and coldly efficient, there are, fortunately, Singaporeans who believe idealism has a place, and that the fire, passion and commitment of the Old Guard, who saw Singapore through the difficult early years with little hope of financial reward, are still alive in some young Singaporeans.
The policy on ministerial salaries will, at the least, breed weary resignation in Singaporeans: What's the use of giving one's views at all? And, at the worst, give rise to toxic cynicism: What's the use of teaching our young such values as caring and selflessness and sacrifice if each carries a price tag?
source: Asia1.com -
Well written article, esp.the last paragraph.
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I like Catherine Lim's para quoted here:
"But, at the same time, no Singaporean would expect a minister to feel disgruntled if he is paid less than the top CEO. If the disgruntlement actually causes him to leave his job, then he was not cut out for public office in the first place. Thus, to offer him a matching salary to enable him to stay would be to demean that office. "
There seems to be some very explicit statements from the Government on the need to peg the pay of our ministers to the top 20 earners in the country else they will be enticed to go somewhere else. -
According to MM Lee's latest view about the need to keep top talents to protect jobs and homes, (Today's article "A Question of Dollars and Sense, 5.4.2007) justifying his continuous autocratic self-rewards of ministers and top civil servants to the tune of paying them the world's highest salaries, it would obviously be wrong to convict Durai of any irregularities over his peanut S$600 K salaries and the equally obscene bonuses as what Durai and his NKF board of directors did was merely trying to follow MM Lee's own government self-reward scheme to avoid underpaying and losing talents which may cause collapse of jobs in the charity sector.
Has NKF proven that higher salaries above S$100,000.00 will lead to more accountable and open running of KKF?
The benchmarking is selectively targeted in such a way that it is skewed to equate any increments in private sector's salaries to CEO as reflecting ministers' abilities. Where is the connection or relationship between ministers' abilities and private sector's CEO performance?
It is the artful selective benchmarking which will always show that ministers's salaries will forever not be enough even though the rest of the general popultion's salaries (administrative to executive in the 80% band) are dropping duringn the implementation of such self-rewarding scheme from 1970s to 1990s
In other words, in reality, MM Lee has yet to prove that by keeping up of ministers's salaries with increases of CEOs' salaries in the private sector, it will lead to better management or more accountable and open running of the government.
Instead we have only seen abuses of power by NKF CEOs even though higher salaries were paid to NKF CEO. He has not proven that by paying the current NKF CEO less than S$600 K pa NKF will lose talents, lose jobs and collapse.
The long and run of Government, NGOs and GLCs is that such organizations are merely responsible to collect public taxes and spening them. The ministers could simply blame on the people for lack of skills or retraining or globalisation in the event of recessions of large-scale retrenchments going on as seen during the last three recessions. Even today, Singapore's ministers have not yet succeeded in restructuring the economy to value-adding technology-driven model talked about for ages although there is now a small improvements due to world recovery from 2004 that enable the ministers to take credit and assume success.
Have they made the lives of median 80% of population better with higher salaries over the past 20 years as compared with Koreans or Finnists or Swiss. If 80% of population is not doing so well as the ministers or the private sector CEOs can we say our ministers are talented and safeguarding the interests of the people. What is the use of giving them higher salaries just to support more NKF ways of doing things or give them more power such as to carry on with past wrong policies which do not work through total control of the press.
All the powers in the world are corrupted by giving of more monies to the powers and increasing of such powers. -
Ya no one is indispensable, we all have to go one of these days.Originally posted by charlize:Frankly, great leaders are those who make sure that the economy can continue to function even if there is a change in leadership.
It's a like a company. When the CEO leaves, does the whole company stop working? No way. In fact the priority of the CEO is to ensure that everything runs smoothly even when she is not around. That the middle managers will hold the fort and galvanise the staff to keep the company functioning with little disruption. That is the mark of a great leader.
Not one who continually tells the staff that the company will be bankrupt or collapse the moment she leaves. -
Some people think that they are indispensible....
End of the day, why do we bother to even argue when once they decide on anything, they will just push thru whatever they want. To retract would be a loss of face to them....
Bottomline is many of us have decided to vote with our feet.....we have all migrated to seek a better place elsewhere, may not be perfect or paradise, but at least we know we get a better deal elsewhere..
All this fast progress will be this country's undoing in time to come...6.5 million people??? There will indeed be trouble ahead....
I say Adios....no point staying here and serving NS and reservist and what nought....give up citizenship and all will be well -
legolas wrote:
Through artful arguments, citizens have been sold many such policies like the need to pay ministers' salaries to keep up with the CEOs' pays in the private sector over the years which are selfishly done to benefit those who are in power which upon final examination are one-sided and without basis, accountability and transparency.
ST Forum
I REFER to the letters, 'Do ministers enjoy big pension after two terms?' (ST, March 31) by Miss Jolene Ong and 'Pay at 2/3 benchmark but remove pension' (ST, April 4) by Mr Chang Wei Meng.
Miss Ong asked if it was true that a minister was entitled to a lifetime pension of two thirds of his last-drawn salary and suggested that if this were so, ministers would be paid a 'handsome $792,000 per annum till the day they die'.
Mr Chang suggested the pension 'would work out to be about $10 million' and felt that the pension scheme 'seems to be an anachronism' when pay is measured against that in the private sector.
The Government has moved away from the pension scheme for the majority of civil servants since 1986. However, the pension scheme has been retained for the Administrative Service and the Intelligence Service where there is a strong reliance on the depth of expertise and length of experience for continuity of national policies.
For the same reason, the pension scheme has been retained for office holders, namely, Speaker, ministers, ministers of state, mayors, parliamentary secretaries and political secretaries, given their role in and impact on national policies, provided they serve long enough to qualify for a pension.
Both writers have grossly exaggerated the amounts. Ministers qualify for a pension if they serve a minimum of eight years, but the amount of pension varies with the length of service.
The maximum pension for a minister drawing a total annual salary of $1.2 million is $176,500 per annum (not $792,000), and to get that maximum pension the minister has to serve for 18 years. Pensions have been frozen since 1994, so that all salary revisions since then (and this one) will have no effect on pensions.
Ong Toon Hui (Ms)
Director
Leadership Development
Public Service Division
Prime Minister's Office
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PMO said, "pension scheme has been retained for the Administrative Service and the Intelligence Service where there is a strong reliance on the depth of expertise and length of experience for continuity of national policies".
So is PMO saying only this elite group of civil servants has "the depth of expertise" and "experience"??? What about the rest of the civil service employees?? Are they all stupid? What about the majority of S'poreans? Are we too stupid to deserve pension scheme, thus we have to make do with CPF scheme?
It appears that PMO doesn't want to divulge much details on total ministerial remuneration. It remains unclear whether our highly talented ministers will get $176,500/year for life upon reaching 55 years of age. PMO still hasn't clarify whether a minister who continues to hold office after 55 years old is drawing pension benefits (i.e. $176,500/year) and the usual ministerial salary.
Assuming conservatively that a minister lives till 75 years old (i.e. 20 more years after turing 55). $176,500 X 20 = $3.53m. Elites in private sector get employer's CPF contribution of 14.5% (after the increase from 13%) on a CPF capped salary of $4,500. Assuming 30 years of working life, total employer's contributions = $4,500 X 14.5% X 12 X 30 = $234,900.
That means ministers are enjoying additional retirement benefits of $3.3m not ordinarily available to an elite working in the private sector. So, shouldn't ministerial salary be adjusted to take this into account?
How about medical benefits post retirement? PMO hasn't shed any light on this.
Through selective comparison, ministers' salaries have been equated to "head I win, tail you lose" formula where successes among top earning CEOs are equated to ministers' success and any of the CEOs' failures like their losses of jobs and bankruptcies among them and the general dropping of salaries among the 80% median administrative-executive workers are completely ignored.
Through selective comparison, again, ministers' pensions at 2/3 of the last drawn salaries are conveniently left out in the benchmarking.
Is this kind of governance good corporate governance, accountability and transparency which lead to success in human enterprises in history.
It will only make Singapore's ministers' benchmarking to the bests of the bests and not to any drops in performance or the worse really the world biggest laughing stock if the truths ever come out. -
PMO transparent a bit lah.......see this sort of reply makes me wanna vomit blood. Kind of like "trying to bluff his way thru" mentality.
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Excellent article !
Thanks for posting -
Roadsweepers in Chicago are paid USD$8 an hour. We should pay our Singapore roadsweepers SGD12.64-USD$8 an hour too! Maybe we should start pegging the roadsweepers salary to the number of tourist to singapore!
The entire lee family including Ho ching are getting paid in millions. They write themselves their own cheques each month cause there is nobody to stop them from doing what they like! i would love to see the total asset value held by the entire Lee family in this country! why is the assets of ministers seceretive and not in public domain? in other developed countries, uk and usa, the public knows exactly the total assets and liabilities of each and every minister in office!
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It is just vicious cycle..isn't it...economy good...investors want more...
companies want more...employees want more...
taxi drivers and food hawkers want more....
..hmmm good idea for Jack Neo's movie "Pay not enough"....
...urm.. no wonder our neighbours want more...
...they say its not abt greed...envy... -
Makeup pay
Presently,there is provision for the govt to give makeup pay to ministers who can get higher pays in private sector. So those ministers can ask PM for makeup pay if they don't want to lose financially.It means ministers can get market rate salaries presently.So what's the problem, govt? -
Makeup pay
Presently,there is provision for the govt to give makeup pay to ministers who can get higher pays in private sector. So those ministers can ask PM for makeup pay if they don't want to lose financially.It means ministers can get market rate salaries presently.So what's the problem, govt? -
transparency? you won't want to spill the can of worms
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change the govt.
give us increase in 1,5% CPF and want to justify 1million pay increments.
fat dreams!
if they ever do that i gona tell all my relatives in ching ming festival tomorrow they should reconsider this party and govt the opposite come next election! -
I don't see much value-addedness going on in the last 5 years.
Frankly, we should call for a National Referendum on Revision of Civil Service Payscales. No pay raise without a referendum.
LKY does not get the whole point of this debate. The crux is not the amount of pay increment, the crux of this whole issue is whether the public believe that the Civil Service, especially the superscale and Perm Sec/Ministers have done enough in the last term to deserve a pay increment in principle, when their salary scale already dwarfs that of the G-8 economies.
There is no proper perspective on the pay scale here, just the opinion of one ex-Prime Minister, whom I personally think, should withdraw from politics and leave the running to his son's administration. Whether it sinks or thrives, that's their own call now. Singapore will not collapse if LHL's government sinks. We are not that wimpy. -
tat's the minister pay only....
how abt directorship in listed companies? -
The judge probably did not dare question the NKF Durai or board chairman and directors whether they have abused their power in giving themselves all the benefits like first-class travel and pay increases and bonuses.Originally posted by LazerLordz:I don't see much value-addedness going on in the last 5 years.
Frankly, we should call for a National Referendum on Revision of Civil Service Payscales. No pay raise without a referendum.
LKY does not get the whole point of this debate. The crux is not the amount of pay increment, the crux of this whole issue is whether the public believe that the Civil Service, especially the superscale and Perm Sec/Ministers have done enough in the last term to deserve a pay increment in principle, when their salary scale already dwarfs that of the G-8 economies.
There is no proper perspective on the pay scale here, just the opinion of one ex-Prime Minister, whom I personally think, should withdraw from politics and leave the running to his son's administration. Whether it sinks or thrives, that's their own call now. Singapore will not collapse if LHL's government sinks. We are not that wimpy.
If he dares, clearly Durai would probably be justified in simply answering: "Yes, I abused my privileged position to give myself all the pay increases and bonuses and all the privileges but PM and ministers have agreed that these are peanuts as they also were paying themselves such after-thought salaries increases and bonuses from the public funds and they all moreover gave themselves life-long annuities by comparing with a few lucky ones among the private successful entrepreneurs and their favored CEOs some of whom are their own kakis and even bosses themselves who gave themselves any amounts of monies they like because once they fail in their ventures they stand to lose their pants or may even become bankrupt." -
Everytime I read the line that our PM is trying to narrow the gap between civil and private sector pay, I can't help pondering about the gap between the low and high income groups.
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How about using one's position as an employee to promote one's own interest like director or adviser in another company or other international companies with whom government might have business relationship?Originally posted by sunny6110:tat's the minister pay only....
how abt directorship in listed companies?
Will receiving of a discount (according to HDB this kind of discount is also known as subsidy or market subsidy) on property purchases be allowed if there are business transactions of such a giver with one's own employer.
Will such an employee be allowed under HR regulations of PSC to accept concurrent appointment like director in Morgan Grandfel or some international firm while holding a public office?
Is there a conflict of interest in holding of such positions? Is there a breach of conduct as spelt out in PM's codes of conduct issued to his ministers?