the following is the executive summary of SDP’s policy paper entitled ‘Ethical Salaries for a Public Centered Government’:
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Singapore’s cabinet ministers are, by far, the highest paid in the world. The prime minister is paid more than six times the president of the United States. In defending the current salary structure, the Government puts forth two main arguments: One, the high pay is needed to keep ministers from becoming corrupt and, two, it will help to attract and retain capable people in positions of national leadership.
International comparisons show that current salaries of ministers in Singapore are excessively high and that the amounts should be considerably reduced through a revised formula. Ministers should be motivated by a strong sense of public service rather than being driven by monetary reward. Importantly, ministerial salaries should not be compared to those of the highest paid CEOs but rather to the lowest 20 percent of Singaporean wage earners.
The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) is of the view that while it is necessary to provide cabinet ministers with adequate and reasonable remuneration, the current salaries which amount to millions of dollars per annum are, indeed, excessive.
Furthermore, the actual pay of the ministers are not publicly revealed. The SDP proposes that ministerial salaries be reduced based on a revised formula. Such a formula needs to have built into it features of transparency and accountability overseen by an independent commission which can withstand both domestic and international scrutiny. Singapore’s ministerial wage formula should be based on international best practices and reflect the strong sense of ethics and public service.
We present five key recommendations that will correct the excesses of the present ministerial salary system and bring it into line with international principles of fair remuneration for government leaders.
The five recommendations are:
- Establish an independent salary commission to review ministerial salaries on an annual basis.
- Discontinue variable bonuses such as those tied to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and individual performances of ministers.
- Peg ministerial pay to the wages of the lowest 20 percent of Singaporean workers.
- Provide allowances for ministers in their performance of state duties.
- Establish an independent anti-corruption board that has the power to investigate ministers for corruption.
Reducing ministerial salaries using this revised formula will help achieve three major objectives. One, it will address the call by Singaporeans for fair and ethical salaries for our elected public officials; two, it will ensure that ministers do not lose focus in raising the standard of living of all Singaporeans, and not just those at the top of the economic chain; and three, it will attract national leaders who are dedicated to serving the country and the people and not individuals who focus on advancing their own financial interests.
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SDP’s Policy Paper on Ministerial Salaries HERE.
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@oxygen, ur above about worse marriage is right. the conflict is right in the center.
have to start from the beginning from more than decade ago to undo the wrong attraction & motivation
but people have to suffer before that is done
@ air
“….the conflict is right in the center.
have to start from the beginning from more than decade ago to undo the wrong attraction & motivation but people have to suffer before that is done.”
VB is terrified of higher welfare payout for the destituted poor might “erode” their work ethics.
How come he has not come out to explain why higher Ministerial payout might somehow NOT erode ministerial performance?
A different kind of Pavlov’s dogs, I wonder?
It seems that the “higher-mortals” and “lesser mortals” mindset subsist when it comes to the question of their own pay and comfortable well-being, and that discriminatory stance still is existing.
Obviously, there will be those who insist that some creatures have a higher needs for material comfort and nourishment for all others. Citizenry don’t agree.
But how to undo the wrong attraction and motivation has to start with some benchmark.
Is it going to be either “3 square meals a day in a restaurant, kopitiam or a hawker centre?” benchmark that Gerald Ee should be thinking of?
Granted of superior self-acclaimed mortals, perhaps, we could all be generous and granted them 3 squares meals in a restaurants and we have 2 meals a day in a hawker centre.
By that calculation, it could be $350 per day for a family of 4 for meals, and if I throw in MRT, internet, water and electricity bills, the supermortals might need maybe a total of $500 per day at maximum. That translate to $182,500 per year by my simplistic calculation.
Will they accept this as the MAXIMUM OF SALARY PAYOUT APPLYING THE TOP END OF THEIR BENCHMARK OF 3 SQUARE MEALS SUFFICIENCY CRITERIA in order not risk possible “erosion of their work ethics” which VB feared of wrong money motivation and which could be dangerous to this country future?
I won’t hold my breathe in anticipation.
@ air
It is hard to believe and accept in this internet informed age that there seems to be two mutually exclusive and contradictory formulae of pay-performance linkage.
For the lesser mortals, the formulation is HIGHER PAY = NEGATIVE MOTIVATION = LOWER PERFORMANCE
For higher mortals, the formulation is
HIGHER PAY = HIGHER MOTIVATION = HIGHER PERFORMANCE
You are either peasantry or nobility class – the self-appointed nobility decides your classification.
Perhaps, the Nobel Prize Committee might want to strip Pavlov of his award “erroneously” granted.
@oxygen
________________________________
out of the heart the mouth speaks.
it’s so obvious this guy possesses zero servant-leader quality.
he was just trying to score points from his master, but have since backfired.
he is nothing but a snake and an opportunist. Agree that gerard must consider this as a benchmark.
=================================
———————————–
these are the exact equations the pap are applying in singapore. can work for so long only uniquely and typically in singapore. try applying these same unique equations in china, hk, indonesia, taiwan, malaysia or anywhere else, and i’m sure to witness uprisings in these countries long long ago.
@oxygen
‘Is it going to be either “3 square meals a day in a restaurant, kopitiam or a hawker centre?” benchmark that Gerald Ee should be thinking of?’
out of the heart the mouth speaks.
it’s so obvious this guy possesses zero servant-leader quality.
he was just trying to score points from his master, but have since backfired.
he is nothing but a snake and an opportunist. Agree that gerard must consider this as a benchmark, though i know the sun would rise from the west if he will.
=================================
‘For the lesser mortals, the formulation is HIGHER PAY = NEGATIVE MOTIVATION = LOWER PERFORMANCE
For higher mortals, the formulation is
HIGHER PAY = HIGHER MOTIVATION = HIGHER PERFORMANCE’
these are the exact equations the pap are applying in singapore. can work for so long only uniquely and typically in singapore. try applying these same unique equations in china, hk, indonesia, taiwan, malaysia or anywhere else, and i’m sure to witness uprisings in these countries long long ago.
@oxygen
‘Glad to hear we are on the same page. These are hard times and terrifying future ahead for a lot of our fellow citizens.’
i believe the majority here are on the same page :)
it’s the best time to see what these million dollar ministers have up their sleeves. if they continue to blame the world economy, then they really deserve peanuts for they’re are not better than monkeys.
@ sal.
It is mystifying to me that voters can’t see through this deceptive hoax of ultimate self-contradiction.
Even more derogatory is the formulae itself that somehow and unexplained of inter-connectedness that higher pay inexplicably somehow motivates higher performance MYSTERIOUSLY.
It seems that voters don’t think at all in 2011. Or is it the case of brainwashed conditioning leaving too much carbon dioxide in some voter’s brains.
Just look at this simple analogy as illustration of me working for a mysterious corporate enterprise.
The multi-million dollar paid VIP-class overpaid “driver” takes me as his VIP newly parachute-dropped “passenger” in his/her limousine relaxing in back seat heading for my destination – albeit at a slightly smaller pay package than the “driver” to boot.
I get paid this thief’s ransom fortune in return for my promise to perform. Well, for all sorts of reasons like my incompetence, pretentious motivation or plain inability to perform under the slightest pressure, I stumbled all the way.
Do you seriously think that I will “slap” my goondu VIP-class overpaid “driver” to wake him up that I an underperforming, concealing my underperformance and will therefore voluntarily forgo my monthly pay? Or do I quietly collect my share of thief’s ransom fortune and enjoy the ride in the back seat until he/she offload me upon arrival at my destination (enriched goal) after 5 years later?
I would speculate that my rational thought would be to collect my pay and not slap the driver, if the co-driver also fell asleep.
In that situation, is my “boss” – the VIP class driver who is “MOTIVATED” of my performance (if I perform) by the huge pay he/she is stupidly paying me this incompetent passenger? Or is me, the parasitic cunningly parachutist who fell asleep or dozing away in the back seat collecting my HANDSOME PAY who is thus ‘MOTIVATED” of the pay he gives me in blindness of stupidity?
My logic tells me that my boss cum driver who is MOTIVATED of my hope-for performance whilst I, as his/her passenger is MOTIVATED BY MY PAY he or she stupidly gives to me.
The logic of pay motivates performance is as seriously “credible” of intelligent conclusion as a stupid dog eating its own poo or poo of other dogs left lying around in the public park.
Pay always motivate performance – IT IS THE PAYMASTER BOSS WHO IS PERFORMANCE MOTIVATED, never the receipient – worst still if the beneficiary is a truely NON-PERFORMER WHO IS STRONGLY MOTIVATED BY DEMAND FOR MORE PAY whilst the stupid driver is asleep on the wheel.
I wonder aloud now, if Gerald Ee final report will touch on the ignominious fallacious assumed connection between pay and performance at all as perhaps a relevant consideration when he submitted his final recommendation.
Voters need education guidance to make rational informed judgment in 2016 as to the realism of his recommendation outcome thus.
@ Tiananmen,
Dude, I have long ignored his mumbo jumbo. No matter how he tried to spin the world, he could not answer my main point – why the SDP report did not compare salary of MPs across different countries. It is because the facts shows that in some countries their MPs are paid more than ours. If you are the writer, of course you will want to hide this fact from Singaporeans.
We have to be critical of all reports. I’m not taking Gerard Ee’s report blindly, and hell no way I will swallow this report blindly too. You and me are given the brain to think, so we must avoid being fooled and being pawns in the games which the politicians are playing (MIW or SDPP or whatever).
What Oxygen is doing is trying to obscure the whole situation so that we just accept the report blindly. Maybe he is being paid, maybe he has some conflicting interest in the report. Whatever it is, I urge you to read the report and ask why comparison was made on Prime Minister’s and Ministers pay, but not MPs. When the writer did not compare MPs pay, of course there must be something to hide.
Don’t take my words totally. Read the report yourself and make your own decision.
Why never compare MP pay leh………… got something to hide?
@ Ray,
“What Oxygen is doing is trying to obscure the whole situation so that we just accept the report blindly. Maybe he is being paid, maybe he has some conflicting interest in the report.”
You can keep all your speculative conjectures to your imaginative fabrication as much as you LIED AND CAUGHT LYING ABOUT THE MACDONALD-TIFFANIE ESCAPADE of corruption investigation in Sydney allegedly involving MPs allowance when no money changed hands and irrelevant to the ministerial pay review of Australian Federal Government.
In that failed deception of yours, you HID DETAILS of that event to provide yourself the cover to broadcast a lot of lies in this thread. I follow Australian politics, found the weblink (and published in this thread) and proved to all how shamelessly you were caught red-handed of lying deceptions.
I wonder what you are aiming now to achieve by accusing me as having alleged corrupt interest in this SDP report as being paid or has some conflicting interest.
YOU ARE NOT EVEN CERTAIN IF EITHER OF YOUR ACCUSATIONS ARE TRUE OR FALSE OR BOTH ARE FALSE – this is your base of lowest denominator of credibility. Is that not obvious to all readers yet?
You are engaged in KNOWING LYING AGAIN.
Who believes you when you have blown your credibility with lies caught red-handed and no response?
Are you really that dense in your head filled only with speculative conjectures and false accusatons? Or are you what a former Australian PM once said … a tip but no iceberg behind it?
@ Hiding something?
” Why never compare MP pay leh………… got something to hide?”
I don’t think one can seriously and correctly compare MP pay globally for one very simple reason.
In countries like Australia, Canada or USA, you have two levels of Governments.In Australia, they have got DIFFERENT State Governments like New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania etc and you have one FEDERAL GOVERNMENT for the whole of Australia. State parliamentary seats and parliaments are different from that of Federal Government. In Canada, they have provincial governments and Federal Government as well. In USA, you got state senator/Congressman and national Government of one party in President in the Oval Office in Washington.
How do you compare Singapore’s MPs with the State MPs in New South Wales or Federal MPs sitting in Canberra? You can’t compare apples with oranges or apples with lychees!
And I know that Federal MPs are NOT allowed to have another job while holding political office. I beleive State MPs in Australia is the same too.
In Singapore, MPs is almost like a part-time job. Therefore MPs here have at least two streams of income. So it is not really comparable.
When you look at the example of former Federal MP, Maxine McKew, a distinguished news journalist, who is likely to earn 7-digit pay annually. As Federal MPs, she must have got more than 90% pay cut. Journalism in the electronic media can be very well-paid. A news presenter like Jana Wendt gets paid $4 million to $7 million a year depending on which broadcasting station hired her. I can show you the weblink proof if you want.
As for other MPs like Bob Brown in Tasmania, his pay cut sacrifice might not be that signiicant comapred to his usual occupation.
So making comparison of MPs and their sacrifice of pay is illusory of valid comparison.
Hope this explanation helps.
@Ray
Do not shoot your own feet. I live in Australia before and their MP are full-time. So you cannot compare MP allowance in Singapore and MP pay in Australia. In fact, in most countries, MP work is full-time.
@Ray Shot His Own Feet
As I posed to Ray before, Are you a “tip but no iceberg”.
After caught and exposed of lying voraciously behind the cover of brevity of his dramatised story-telling in regards to the MacDonald-Tiffanie episode in NSW and exposed of falsity and hypocrisy, the best he could do is to remain silence for a while only to suddenly re-emerging to “converse” with @Tiananmen to then hurl scurrilous allegation that I am MAYBE paid by SDP or have some conflict of interest. His accusations of me rest solely on his UNCERTAINTY of truth of substance of his KNOWINGLY fictional accusations!
Now exposed of his disappearing act after caught out lies, he disappeared into hiding again.
He makes good entertainment here of his cockroach-like behavior, coming out to hunt and then when confronted with truths, dash for refuge in some crevices. LOL
Don’t take him seriously as he did forewarned @ Tiananmen of ” Don’t take my words totally”.
Hi oxygen- thanks for your input. Enjoy reading your posting which is both informative and humorous at time.
@ georgia tong
Glad to share your enjoyed participation in this platform too, thanks.
@sal
You make a number of erroneous assumptions in your post on China, including a) majority of Singaporean Chinese have relatives in China and b) that Singaporean Chinese and Hong Kong Chinese take pride in the success of China.
Many Singaporean Chinese have no relatives in China and they take no pride in China’s rise.
Can anyone justify why we need such high salaries to “maintain” a corrupt free government when Singapore’s corruption perception index (Transparancy International 2010 study)ranking merely matches that of Denmark and New Zealand?
The point I raised was why don’t we compare the salary of MPs across the countries? If indeed we are the highest paid (which we are mostly), then there is nothing to hide in the report. Let’s publish MP’s pay across all the countries and let the readers compare.
I am not disputing the fact that Australian or other countries MPs are full time, unlike us. But then we do have MPs that are full time too (Slyvia Lim for example).
Let’s stick to the issue and try not to confuse the readers:
Compare and publish the MP’s pay (basic + allowances) across the countries and provide the references if you have nothing to hide. Be TRANSPARENT and walk the talk !! Let the readers decide.
@ Oxygen,
I am not taking side but I think the report will be more credible if we include and compare MPs’ remunerations too. This is important as MP’s allowances form the basis for Ministers and PM’s pay in the recommendations.
And please don’t comment about China or Australia. I am not interested. Just cut the crap and go to the point.
@ Ray Shot His Own Feet,
The purpose of comparison is to let the readers’ know how much MPs are being paid across different countries. Is that so difficult to provide or to research on?
If you start bringing in if they are working full time or part time, there will be other non-variables factors you have to bring in.
Do not treat Singaporeans as fools in your propaganda. We know most of our MPs have other works too. But since there is comparison on Ministers and PMs salaries, why not the MPs too?
Like I said be transparent and open. Let’s provide the comparison on MPs salaries plus all the references if you have nothing to hide.
@ Cut the Crap
YES, CUT OUT YOUR CRAP.
Show us the proof that ( in your quote)…MP’s allowances form the basis for Ministers and PM’s pay in the recommendations.” And define which “recommendations” and where that exist.
As for my explanatory reference to Australia, it was in response to @hide something. If you have problem with that, buy yourself a new brain. I can’t help you on that otherwise.
China and South Korea are good illustration of the fake presumption that pay motivates performance. And the biggest proof of that is Pavlov dog’s experiment finding of classical conditioning.
And if you still don’t like that recognition of the Nobel Prize committee, just your criminal lawyer where the thinking motivation lies – the giver or the receiver. On whose shoulder is the “motivated” head on pay lies – giver or receiver of that pay?
If you still can’t figure that one out intelligently, cut your crap and go to bed.
Goodnight and don’t bother to come back. I am only interested in intelligent conversations, thanks.