Singapore PM in damage control on salary: analysts
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Thursday April 12, 3:56 PM
Singapore PM in damage control on salary: analysts
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's offer to freeze his salary for five years is an attempt to appease rare public fury over plans to boost the salaries of ministers and civil servants, analysts said Thursday.
The Singapore leader told parliament on Wednesday he would forego the salary hike which would give him an annual income of more than two million US dollars a year, up from the 1.62 million dollars he made last year.
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He would donate the difference to "suitable good causes", he said.
"It looks like an indicator that he is trying to calm the public," said Sinapan Samydorai, president of the Think Centre human rights group.
"After all this noise, then you announce it, people will still be sceptical even though his intention may be good," he told AFP.
The prime minister's press secretary said Lee's decision to freeze his salary was not a response to opposition to the salary hike.
"The fact is it was a decision taken up front even before the announcements of pay revision," Chen Hwai Lian told AFP.
Lee's salary hike was part of a pay increase for cabinet ministers and civil servants announced on Monday.
His revised salary would be five times more than the 400,000 dollars paid to US President George W. Bush and more than eight times that of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who receives 240,000 dollars a year.
The pay increases provoked a rare outcry from normally reserved Singaporeans.
In a country where political rallies are banned without a permit and the media are closely linked with the government, many of the comments against the pay rise were posted on the Internet, where people can use pseudonyms.
"What a hypocrite our PM Lee is," said Annie, who was among a growing list of people to sign an online petition against the increments. More than 1,800 had signed by Thursday.
"One moment he wants to level up his and his ministers' pay, next moment he tries to be a good and caring person by donating his increment to charity for the next five years," Annie said.
Ministers' salaries are to be raised incrementally from 1.2 million dollars to 1.9 million dollars by the end of 2008.
"Him freezing his pay should be seen more as a gesture to control the damage," said Terence Chong, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
"He is trying to seize the moral high ground and also to deflect criticism that ministers lack the desire" to perform public service, he told AFP.
The move to increase ministerial pay comes amid a widening income gap and ahead of a hike in the goods and services tax by two percentage points to seven percent beginning in July.
"The reason why there is such dissatisfaction is because the hike has come at a strange time when the salaries of the average Singaporean seem to be stagnating and in some parts taking a dip," said Chong.
"Also, it comes at a time when there are reports of a wage gap between the rich and poor widening," he said.
Lee and senior ruling party leaders said high salaries, pegged to the pay of senior private sector employees, were necessary to attract the best people to government and prevent corruption.
Opposition politician Chee Soon Juan, of the Singapore Democratic Party, disagreed.
"It must never be forgotten that parliaments are institutions of service, not avarice," Chee said on his party's website.
"The pay hike was a colossal misstep on the part of the government ... The PM is obviously now trying to undo, or at least limit, the damage." -
damage already been done. strike 1.
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The way the poodle award themselves with bonus is just like the peanut organisation.
The best dog get more bonus.
The poodle already have a pay increase with their 11 month bonus.
Why are they still asking for ridiculous pay rise ??
Why is the people unable to do anything as they are paid by the people ?? -
OK. I give the PMÂ’s press secretary the benefit of the doubt because GCT has done it before when he was PM back in the 90s. He froze his salary increment for 5 years too.
However, the increase was not substantial back then.
GCT must have given LHL this tip and I believe LHL has anticipated that he will face a public outrage -
The money donated is still PUBLIC MONEY being TEMPORARILY transferred from the State Coffers to his account, then to the account of the Public Charity or Charities.
Thanks again to his Cabinet for all the extra work being created, and for the additional cost in the National Budget to pay for such additional works. -
Donate money to where? The point is, does that donation help the poor like us?
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Their one month salary is equal to my annual salary multiply by two times...
Way that me feel here he's trying to gain some sympathy by 'giving' to 'suitable' good cause...
What type of 'suitable' good cause isn't clearly being mentioned...
To me, it's just a political move, nothing humane... -
I think they have to realize the political climate has changed, it isn't like what it used to be before where it was just one single perspective. People are more vocal and more perceptive of the current state of affairs. This must be a huge reminder to them all that the fundamentals of the system still stands - for the people, by the people and you would get more of that as the younger generation moves up without any illusions of 'loyalty' or'responsibility' to the ruling party. I hope that the government sees this change, and instead of tightening the stranglehold, they should move with the tide and realize that change is inevitable and it is good to foster that change.
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they should consider nkf.Originally posted by Boy Stratus:Donate money to where? The point is, does that donation help the poor like us? 
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hypocrite???
give u shares den u dun kpkb hor.
we should have a more balanced view instead of firing at PM himself~ -
I would hardly call those shares even worth much except to the extremely poor , assuming they even have CPF which is itself a stumbling block for them.Originally posted by hiphop2009:hypocrite???
give u shares den u dun kpkb hor.
we should have a more balanced view instead of firing at PM himself~
In any case, it does not change the fact that he's a bloody hypocrite. -
pay increase for charity...yeah rite....tell it to the dogs and cows....guess Sillyporeans are all treated like fools....if sincere, should have announced b4 the pay hike increase even....even then, don't think it will quieten us...
YEah...go tell it to the cows -
Not only now, he has been doing damage control since Budget debate
by appointing others to speak on it rather than himself, especially when he is the Finance Minister as well -
Why bother doing damage control....
.... when you can actually prevent the damage from occurring in the first place?
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Where got damage?
They are all laughing all the way to the bank still right? -
Dr. V said that there is no logical linkage between ministers' pay and public assistance to the poor.
Let us ask him :
How logical is the government's linkage of minister's salaries to the few lucky CEOs in the private sector who happen to be paid higher than the ministers because they are business bosses and investors who would pay themselves any amount of salaries from business profits.
How logical is the benchmarking of employees to remunerations of business bosses who got that kind of rewards because of their own hard-earned investments are making monies.
Is it logical for someone recruited at S$10,000.00 pm to say that he is underpaid and should be paid S$100,000.00 pm instead so as to be benchmarked to other higher paid CEOs.
If someone has happened to strike a first prize in TOTO or Big Sweep in the job market, can any one say that he should be entitled to strike such prize.
For every top-performing CEOs among the big companies or MNCs doing well and getting high rewards like $5,000,000.00 pa, how many equally good and capable ones are still out there trying hard but only earning a fraction not because they are not as talented or capable but for other reasons like lack of connections.
By paying someone S$600,000.00 pa does it guarantee that he would do a better job and not engaged in power play or abuses.
So how many factors we should consider other than salaries before we could reasonably say that we could build up a good team of leaders.
Has it been proven that after paying ministers the million-dollar salaries after 1992, or durai S$600,000.00 pa we would guarantee there will be no hypocrisy and abuses which cause bigger problems to society as found in Enron and Worldcom or the Asian Financial Crisis.
If one cannot answer logically the above-stated questions, I would rather that we continue to pay our ministers S$200,000.00 - S$500,000.00 pa, slightly lesser than the counterparts in successful countries like Japan or Denmark instead of all the unproven and dubious assumptions of MM Lee.
Singapore needs new leaders now to understand the real problems faced by globalizations instead of same old leaders which govern on unproven assumptions and guessworks. -