Wakka Kong and Simeon Ang
The Singapore government has always taken pride in its strong stand against corruption, as substantiated by Singapore’s high ranking (fourth) in the global corruption survey. According to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, the high salary remunerated to Singaporean ministers helps ensure a clean and honest government as well as attract and retain local talent. Pegged to a percentage of salaries of some of the top earners in Singapore as well as the nation’s economic growth, our ministers’ salaries top the world. Our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is the highest paid head of government, more than five times the remuneration of US president Barack Obama.
We have compiled a table of data to provide comparison between PM Lee and other heads of government in a bid to answer the question of whether the Singaporean government is worth its weight in gold.
[table id=3 /]
* Salaries are from various sources.
* (a&b) Corruption & democracy ranking – http://www.worldaudit.org/corruption.htm
* (c) Quality of life ranking – http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/
* GDP per capita from International Monetary Fund – http://imf.org/
At first glance, our PM is paid up to twelve times more than the other first world leaders. What is even more surprising is that the anti-corruption rankings of these said countries are better than Singapore. We can see plainly that while Singapore has done relatively well in one area, we are obviously lagging in other terms. In addition, these selected countries outscore us in the democracy rankings, whilst their people enjoy a better quality of life – one can therefore safely conclude at this juncture, that an effective and efficient government does not require astronomical salaries to counter corruption and attract and retain talented leaders.
Nonetheless, we ought to recognise the importance of quality logic and foresight in governance, such as those displayed by MM Lee in the pre- and post-independence (minus Operation Coldstore, which was an outrage in my humble opinion). There is sufficient evidence to claim that the initial management of local housing and education by MM Lee’s government provided an impetus for the growth of our country. This allowed the country to be propelled from third world status to that of the first world.
However, there seems to be a downturn of sorts in the character and “spur” of the government at this moment. Recently, Minister of National Development Mah Bow Tan, when trying to address concerns about the housing needs of local Singaporeans, admitted that he had been “caught off guard”. It would seem that the million dollar salary he is earning has not compensated him enough to be act prudently in meeting the needs of Singaporeans.
If such verbal gaffes were isolated and sporadic, it would certainly not capture much attention from the citizenry. However, as we all know, our ministers have recently been prone to many a faux pas.
A little bright spot might be evident in the table we have shared above. This comes in the form of the high gross domestic product per capita. However, if we were to dissect the data provided, we can attribute the high GDP per capita to a few reasons.
One important generator of the high GDP per capita in recent years may be our lax immigration policy, as some analysts suggest. The influx of cheaper immigrant workforce artificially inflated the GDP, strained Singapore’s infrastructure, pushed housing prices through the roof, lowered overall productivity, depressed local workers’ wages, contributed to the widening of the income gap – one of the highest, if not the highest, among developed countries.
Ultimately, the people who reap the most from it are the rich. What many Singaporeans do not realise is that this translates to higher ministers’ salary, as their remuneration is pegged to a percentage of the average income of the top four earners of six different sectors in the country.
Singapore’s ranking on the quality of life study further reinforces the views of many locals that life here is far from being a bed of roses as compared to other first world countries. Furthermore, a 2009 study showed that Singaporeans work much longer hours per year as compared to most other first world country citizens living in their capital.
The table below collates some of the average work hours of the abovementioned countries.
[table id=4 /]
* Figures from “Prices and Earnings”, UBS
The huge disparity in work hours and domestic purchasing power speaks volumes about the man on Main Street. As opposed to what the government would have its citizens think, Singaporeans are a hardworking bunch. The average work hour of a Singaporean far exceeds that of the other countries in our analysis. Yet what do Singaporeans have at the end of the day? Well, Singaporeans take home the lowest domestic purchasing power of all five countries. To add further insult to injury, the government has even called on Singaporeans to be “cheaper, faster and better”. Contrast this phenomenon with that of ministerial salary, we can see a phenomenon aptly described by the brand name of a local beverage, Heaven and Earth.
For some time now, the Americans have been criticizing about the excesses of Wall Street and the resulting use of Main Street to shore up the country’s economy. Putting this in context with the Singaporean society, it is time for the excesses of the government to be checked by the man on Main Street. It is time the government of Singapore realises that they are only in power on the premise that they govern for the people and not for themselves. As George H. W Bush said, “A government that remembers that the people are its master is a good and needed thing.”
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jxblack
Feb 3, 2010 14:43
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/11674/52/
http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=1505
studies estimated that america’s GDP will increase if they do not deport the illegal immigrants, but to welcome immigrants. applying the same logic, these immigrant will also increase our GDP through taxes etc.
however, once the immigration floodgate closes, the quantity coming in will be lesser and will most likely retard our GDP growth, unless the quality of both the immigrants and locals can go up fast enough to maintain the GDP growth.
my 2 cents.
//Mahathir once said that Ministers in Malaysia are often accused of accepting under the counter payments to get things done but in Singapore they do it over the counter.//
There is indeed a huge difference. There, when they get caught they have to face the music.
Here they ensure that they will never be caught as everything is nice and legal. Result?
There is no music to dance to!!!
I cannot imagine another 10 years.
Would new citizens be >50% citizen population in 5 years time or less ?
What might be the effect of us giving them another 5 years ?
When new citizen >50%, does this mean we the >=2nd generation citizens become the minority?
IF so, how will we affected the decisions of the >50% newbies?
To avoid all these headache, i know what to do now. I am ready like there is no tomolo.
Perhaps the peg of our ministers’ pay should be to the leaders in other countries instead of the top earners in the country.
Afterall, we should not be comparing apples against oranges.
Am I making sense here ??
Without going into the pay issue, i feel that the singapore leaders are fast losing touch of the plight of the common people. They are supported by grass root leaders who are mostly self serving and who merely want to report good news and positive events to the masters they report to.
It is sad that there are some segments in our population that have been totally neglected, ignored and sidelined.
I think our country will fail in the long term if this trend continues…
Look at the cronies they are surrounded with. Everyone with $$$$ in their eyes. PERIOD.
$$$ is the only language they talk.
Now, $$$ is the only language the populace knows.
Singaporeans are screwed one way or another if we continue with this route.
When we look at how much the ministers draw above as compared to mounting poverty in Singapore. It really makes many people sick! This information alone, makes LKY legacy pale.
Wakka
Feb 3, 2010 21:01
That’s interesting. Thanks for taking time to dig those out. Hope to see you guys write more about such issues.
At the rate the golden boys and gals of the government is heading…
well…
Best they read this..
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/stupidity/
If anyone has reflected, the reasons given were indeed “very shallow” !
This reflects the of law and order of a country.
It then becomes questionable !
And sometimes ago, the stories of “confrontasi” was brought up.
Frankly, “the scheme” was well planned.
So we did ran to the “cow-boys”. (As expected !).
And, the “cow-boys” were laughing all the way.
Intellectuals ? Worth its weight in gold ?
Anyway, it is better to adapt any rules and regulations we learned from any countries, too.
It is foolish to follow blindly !
So this advertisement on TV was repeated many times, about the colour “Red”.
It says that certain countries regard it as not good, but others consider it as good omen !
/// Nonetheless, we ought to recognise the importance of quality logic and foresight in governance, such as those displayed by MM Lee in the pre- and post-independence (minus Operation Coldstore, which was an outrage in my humble opinion). There is sufficient evidence to claim that the initial management of local housing and education by MM Lee’s government provided an impetus for the growth of our country. This allowed the country to be propelled from third world status to that of the first world. ///
Very true. However, all these are done during the period when ministers were paid relatively modestly. So, there is no correlation with high pay and high performance. In fact, quite the reverse. Many of the recent boo-boos and major fiascos occurred after the ministers were paid handsomely.
There is no way they can justify their cut-throat salaries ! Basing on an average salary of $ 3,000 per day per Minister, what value have they added to justify that kind of salaries?
The Singapore Govt is worth my 2 big balls. Even if you were to remove my 2 big balls, I can still live. So that’s how much it is worth.
Personally i dun mind if they get 10 times more pay provided they deliver 10 times more, to singaporeans that is and not to anybody else. With these foreign workers, and the locals not protected when they are displaced from their work due to the open competition, i would say that a lot is lacking to say the least. And the way their pay is peg seem counter productive to me, for example by importing millions of talents to fill up this country and without concern for domestic events and the effects to the locals, they could have reaped the benefits of growth and double their pay in an instance. The fact that their pay is pegged to economic outputs instead of human welfare, lies the root of the problem; yet even if they knows about the irony of their peg, and obviously they should have, yet who really cares about it. That is what bothers me and I believe I am not alone in that.
typo error, “for example by importing millions of talents to fill up this country..” shud be read as “if, for example by importing millions of talents to fill up this country..”
look at some of the MPs in the parliament, the way they sit and posture seems to be telling that they are not interested at all to hear what FM had to say. Their faces shows non interest like a class of students listening to a boring history lessons. Our country just barely struggled thru a recession, with a balloning budget expenses, and MPs are damn not even bothered to put up a show. At least, no one is sleeping now. Live telecast is a good way to catch napping MPs and totally BO CHAP face MPs.
I think paying them $11000 every month seems to be a torture to our MPs for just a short session in parliament. How much more they want before their face can brighten up in a LIVE Telecast of the parliament session? How much more?
@FeverGuy what live telecast of parliament, and can judge by ‘cover’ meh D;
Singapore for quite a few years has had a policy of quantity not quality , and I am sorry to say efficiency in most areas is very very low .
And as far as Ministerial salaries goes , Singapore is a lauging stock , ask people in many nations .
My answer to our government – Normal citizens feed the government and their SCHOLARS. The rest are grass