I have high respect for Wen Jiabao, Prime Minister of China. He is humble and in touch with the ordinary people. He governs a country which is 300 times of Singapore, draws a salary of one-tenth of any Singapore minister and is willing to tackle the challenges of income inequality and asset inflation in China. He does not say that these matters can be left to the market to sort out. He sets a good example and is a role model for public service.
Tan Kin Lian
Yes. I have the utmost respects for Mr. Wen and the top political leaders of China. They are paid little relatively [as compared to the country's top professionals] yet willing shouldered the responsibilities of improvement life for the ordinary citizen.
ReplyDeleteIn contract, our leaders pay themselves outrageous salaries by justifying that if they are likely corrupted if they are not paid top dollars. Singapore Ministers are highest paid government officials in the world!
Remember somebody said that our ministers are very highly paid to fight corruption?
ReplyDelete2 reasons for paying themselves highest salary in the world:
ReplyDeletei) Cannot find talented people to join them.
ii) guarranteed not corrupt
For those who are already in office, PM must justify their salary based on performance [KPI] or other criteria. Just by the (i) and (ii) is not enough.
I can see a couple of hardworking Ministers but what about the rest? I have no clue why most of the other ministers are paid so much. No one is willing to tell the public why they are worth so much. Maybe just by looking at the President's salary is enough to know that there is a double standard.
When comes to the ground, the heartlanders must be Cheaper, Faster and Better. But at the top, nothing is transparent but it is purely long service & a big black box.
Maybe they should hold a referendum to let the people decide whether the ministers should be paid more than a million dollars.
Why employees such as cleaners, bus drivers, ... are not paid the highest so that there is no corruption?
ReplyDeleteThe infamous chap with a golden tap was paid very high and yet guilty of corruption (?).
Not only China but the whole world should be thankful China has been blessed with such a political leader. Can you imagine is China of today was run by a corrupt leader it will not only do harm to China but the whole world.
ReplyDeleteIt is also time all human being should look forward to the China Ancient teaching to save the illing world
We sat up to listen to Wen Jiabao
ReplyDeletewhen he made a speech about embarking on a journey to Japan whose main purpose is "to melt the
ice", to try to patch up relations with its former enemy.
What a cultured man. From then on-
wards we try to listen to his speeches whenever we are free.
We used to look forward to our MM Lee in the past. Now his speeches
are smacked with sarcasm, criticisms,ridicule and arrogance, now sulk. We just got pissed off.
and boring.
How difficult is it to govern Singapore compared to China? I would think it is a dumb question to ask, but our leaders are making it sound as if governing Singapore is the most difficult task in the world. We are no bigger than Johor Bahru and how difficult is it to develop the whole island?
ReplyDeleteWe owe our position today to our strategic location, free of natural disasters, obedient citizens and not because of the ruling party. That's a myth propagated by them and constantly drummed into citizens' head because of a compliant MSM.
Mr.Tan, I totally agree with you that the PM of China deserves everyone's respect. He is sincere and has the interest of the ordinary people at heart. Whenvever there is any disaster or harship in the country, he will be among the first to be there to help and comfort the victims. Don't seem to see such sincerity in our Ministers. They only know how to justify their ridiculouly high salaries, but when it comes to productivity, they are the least productive.
ReplyDeleteI saw the news and he has my highest respect from my heart. He puts our so called "leaders" to great shame.
ReplyDeleteCan you imaging if China is run by the world highest paid and the world most greedy "leaders", I'm sure they would not hesitate to approve for themselves to be paid by the billion$$$, otherwise you can expect to see new world records of the most rampant corruptions from the top to the bottom!
ReplyDeleteI had mentioned my respect for Mr Wen somewhere in Mr Tan's blog last year. I never failed to see him on site whenever there is a natural disaster or crisis somewhere; I not blind and can read and see. Mind you, flying from Beijing to Sizhuan takes 3 hours with all the check in and out of airport minus the difficult land transport to the disaster site. China is a big country and not everywhere is easily accessible compared to tiny red dot.
ReplyDeleteIf I am hiring someone and he tells me he must be paid super-high salary otherwise he may corrupt, I tell him to FOFK. This person is definitely a greedy qnd evil one. What can guarantee that he will not corrupt even if paid super-high salary ? Greed begets greed; Money Not Enough and Never Enough.
A good leader is someone with a kind heart, passion and belief in his call of duty to serve, and not be served.
That theory is truly and utterly rubbish to me ! I'm very angry everything I read or hear that. Let's see if their salary will be raised by double digit % again if they win again in the next election.
God Bless Singapore.
"Yin Yang阴阳" has been rooted in Chinese culture before BC.
ReplyDeleteIf,
Yin=hidden agenda
Yang=explicit policy
The pro-capitalism of present China Communist Leader had created BAD social index in past years.
What is so great of such leadership?
Under present COMMUNIST's leadership, partial CPF in Shanghai has gone mission.
ReplyDeleteWould you like it to happen here?
Had the Communist leadership is good, why so many PRC Chinese migrates to SINGAPORE and western countries?
Which system is better?
In any society, how good the system is depends whether it has given its citizens better quality of life. And no where is this truer than to take a look at how the seniors and elderly live their lives and being treated.
ReplyDeleteIn China, they can have real retirement; the old folks take it easy, enjoy life, practice qigong and taichi in the parks and take up hobbies. You don't see elders in China slaving away doing low-paid menial jobs.
In Singapore, it is so common to see 70-yr-old citizens having to be Cheaper, Better and Faster cleaners in hawker centres, rubbish collectors, and town council road sweepers. If not fast enough, our good MPs can replace them with younger, better banglas and PRCs.
Which system is better?
We have to realise an important fact that ministers salaries come from taxpayers money. They have no customers or clients but they have the duty to the taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteThe government sector can never create enough jobs for the economy, its the private sector that does it. The government can only faciliate. This is one the reasons why public sector pay can never be higher that private sector pay. We should be alarmed if it does.
Singapore is a small country with huge government involvement. I looked at Hong Kong under the British and its the best example of small government involvement and hugh private sector.
I believe a government should just be involved in Defence, Law and Order, food and water, some involvement in education and housing. Thats all and even housing is debatable if you look at HDB prices now.
The 20th century has shown Central Planning does not work, we don't need anymore 21st century examples to prove that again.