Singapore Government Plans Another Pay Increase 

Wow! After increasing their salaries by up to 60% earlier this year, you would think they would be satisfied. Hell no! According to this news report, they are planning another bonus in 2008! My PM is already getting paid 5 times whatever George Bush is getting, but that means nothing to them because in “unique Singapore”, things are different and our leaders have to be paid lots of money to prevent them from becoming corrupt. Furthermore, if they do not get paid as much as the top professionals in the private sector, they might quit their posts and jeopardize our $210 billion dollar economy.

This logic does not really make sense to me. What I am getting is, if you pay them too little money, they might start thinking of doing corrupt things to make some money on the side. The solution to this problem is to pay them a lot of money. I can’t say it makes no sense, I guess you could say it does make a little sense but that does not mean it is the only way out.

The expected average salary increase for Singaporeans in 2008 is 5%. Sounds really nice. Did you know that Singapore’s inflation in 2008 is estimated at 5%? There goes your 5% pay increase!

Singaporeans have been told to “Get a sense of proportion” by Lee Kuan Yew. Don’t make a big deal about the ministers’ pay increase because it is for the good of the country to pay them loads of money to preserve what we have and improve on it.

Here’s what Lee Kuan Yew has to say about the ministers’ pay increase:

A dumb video on how they calculated their pay increase.

The total cost of ministers’ salaries, of all office holders, the present cost is 0.13 per cent of government expenditure (and 0.022 per cent of GDP).

It amounts to $46 million. We are quarrelling about whether we should pay them $46 million or $36 million, or better still $26 million. So you save $20 million and jeopardise an economy of $210 billion? (This was the size of Singapore’s GDP in 2006.)

What are we talking about?

You know fund managers? I’m chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) and we put $5 billion, $10 billion with top fund managers, just to benchmark how we are performing against the best in the market.

We have about three or four top US investors and we track what they do and we compare what we are doing.

And you have to pay them not 0.13 per cent. Win or lose, whether the stocks go up or down, they take their cut. You ask GIC employees; I’m the chairman of GIC. I’m being paid as Minister Mentor, the Senior Minister before that, and even as Prime Minister before that, a fraction of what the top managers in GIC earn.

But they are handling over US$100 billion (S$151 billion). They make a mistake, we lose $10, $20, $30 billion overnight when the stock market collapses.

So for the average family earning $1,500, $3,000, we are talking of astronomical figures.

But for people in government like me, having to deal with these sums of money which we have accumulated through the sweat of our brow over the last 40 years, you have to pay the market rate or the man will up stakes and join Morgan Stanley or Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs. And then you’ve got an incompetent man and you’ve lost money, by the billions.

So get a sense of proportion.

More of his wonderful speech on why we need to pay him more money.

According to this interview, Lee Kuan Yew challenged Singaporeans to ask ourselves if we can leave Singapore with a clear conscience.

‘We are now into a globalised world where people who are well-educated, well-trained and especially English-educated have enormous options,’ he said.

But his point to them was this: ‘Can you leave with a clear conscience? I cannot.’

He urged them to think hard about what they owe the country. ‘If we lose our top talent, then we will decline as a nation,’ he said.

The key, he believed, was to inculcate a particular message in the young - especially those doing well in schools, colleges, polytechnics and universities.

‘You are here, you are getting this education, you are getting these opportunities that make you mobile, that make you desirable because this mass of people had discipline, (were) hardworking, provided the stability, the base on which you mounted your career.

‘Can you in good conscience say, ‘Goodbye! Thank you very much’?’

My answer is a big YES. I would like to use his quote “Those are admirable sentiments, but we live in the real world.” in response to this emigration issue. In the real world, there are Chinese people like myself who value their individual freedom. Democracy is not reserved just for Westerners, all Asians and human beings all need and want freedom.

Tagged As: inflation, minister pay increase, singapore emigration

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