Someone sent to me a brief summary of the committee's recommendation, as set out below.
Ministerial salaries review committee proposes:Pension scheme to be removedPresident sees 51% cut and PM sees 36% cut;Minister’s salary to be cut by 37%Minister’s salary to start at $935,00www.reviewcommittee2011.sgThe final recommended salaries are quite close to my submission to the review committee at the start of the review. See this link. Sadly, as is the culture in Singapore, I will not get any credit for my humble suggestion.
8 comments:
I agree..
We should accord credits to both ppl who give good suggestions, as well as, ppl who conducted a thorough anaylsis of those good suggestions.
I may be wrong, but if my memory dun fail me, it's former PM GCT who initiated the huge increase in Ministerial pay to attract private sector candidates to join the PAP, but PM Lee further increased the scale upwards, in a desperate move as a carrot.
But this move still fail, as capable people still stay away, only could attract like minded mode Army, navy and PAP grassroots. So inbreeding continue to lead to political stagnation and regression. Like what LKY said, the inbreeding of the upper castes in India leads to a frozen Gene that only stays at a certain level, difficult to make breakthroughs.
So this policy to dangle a big luscious carrot to candidates outside this pool of "frozen Gene" has flopped hands down. May as well accept Gerald's recommendation of a relatively deep haircut, at least could score good will and political points to prepare for GE 2016. Keeping the 60% supporters more important now, never mind the sub standard people they could only manage to attract.
Last but not least, it is a good diversion for people to concentrate on this conversation focus for months to come, to divert people's attention from the looming economic crisis we may be facing in the new year.
So TKL should feel vindicated and satisfied, at least the PAP and Gerald are quietly keeping tabs on his valuable suggestions in this blog.
Nobody believes that Gerald worked independently without consultations with the Govt all these months, PM knew all along what's on the recommendation list, well before Dec 31st dateline.
Mr Tan
You suggest the salaries of ministers link to the median salary of Singaporean, the committee link to top 1000 earners.
How is it that your suggestion is being considered by the committee which they should credit you for
Dear EK,
I ask for credit for the amount of salary to be paid to the Ministers, which is quite close to my recommendation. At that time, there was no news about the benchmark. Anyway, it would have been better that they follow my benchmark, rather than use the top 1,000 people (which is still unpopular).
In the first place, PAP top leaders, either LKY or GCT should not have been paid themselves the sky-high salaries knowing the dire consequences of eventually distancing them from the ordinary Singaporeans(hard for them to identify with their beloved leaders). To win back their votes comfortably become a mere dream for LHL(the ignorant PM). Worse still, to cut back the million of dollars in one single stroke now, unfortunately, it has translated into the biggest joke in the world. How unwise is our ONCE undefeated government!
The conclusion is that MONEY cannot be used to solve every problem especially for the use of recruiting the good political leaders like Mr Goh Keng Swee and Mr Ong Teng Cheong.
1) it was Mr TKL ' s EP campaign promise to donate 50% of the President pay:-they recommended 51% !
2) the current Bonuses being revealed is mind boggling ! 14 months +
My prediction of more than 33% among my friends and a wish that it would be fair at 66% was met with largely polite smiles. Well, I may yet have the last laugh, as the PM may pull a dramatic show of empathy by volunteering to have his PM salary slashed by 50%.
Just my two cents worth.
On face value, it seems that there is substantial pay cut. But actually they just cut some benefits here and there. basic pay no much chanhe except their variable component of their pay is peg to GDP growth, so eventually if the GDP growth meet their benchmark, they will get the same overall pay(inclsive of PB), so much pay cut at all. Correct??
As an ordinary citizen, I am shocked to learned from yesterday's newspaper that the existing total annual salary of a minister is = multi-million basic salary + up to 23.5 months variable bonus + MP allowance + Pension fund from age 55 years onwards. Before GE 2011, some friends told me that ministers are getting 12 months bonus for yr 2009 n 2010, many of us disbelieved it is true. Now I realized why ERPs everywhere, why taxes after taxes, why HDB flat prices keep going up and up, why land bidding prices keep going up n up, why poor are getting poorer, why medium class became new poor, why ministers talking to the air when giving speeches...
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