Random Musings

Just some thoughts about the ministers’ pay cut.

Firstly, I must applaud the move and say that it is a step in the right direction.

Let us give credit where it is due.

They were clearly keen to appease the public with this move.

There will be those who will still say “Not enough! Cut more!”, and while I do feel that the current salaries are still too high (we’ll get to that point later), many a times I’d like to ask these people:

“So, what will it take to make you keep quiet about ministers’ salaries? $1 million a year? $100,000 a year? $10,000 a year? Will you name a figure that will make you happy?”

There will never be an answer to this.

You can never please everyone.

Okay on to my point…

I still feel that the ministers’ salaries are far too high.

I have never been comfortable with the idea of pegging ministers’ salaries to the top earners in Singapore.

What’s the rationale for that?

Why hasn’t anyone brought up the idea of benchmarking our ministers’ salaries to that of other world leaders?

Surely that is a fair and logical way of looking at things?

And we haven’t even taken into account the size of our tiny nation as compared to the superpowers of the world.

Hasn’t anyone realised that our leaders earn far more than any other leaders in the world?

Consider the fact that even after the salary revision, our PM still earns more than three times that of Hong Kong’s Donald Tsang (who earns about US$550,000 a year), the world’s next highest-paid political leader.

Julia Gillard, David Cameron and Barack Obama earn even less than Donald Tsang.

I’m not sure if I’m the only one who finds this all a bit ridiculous.

I find this hard to swallow.

The problem with political leaders earning exorbitant salaries is that it generates a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness on the ground, and this has clearly been the case the past few years.

The issue of high minister salaries was a hot button topic at the recent GE.

It’s hard to fully embrace your political leaders when you know they earn much more in one month than most Singaporeans earn in one entire year.

It creates alienation and it distances you from the common people.

How is a leader expected to empathise with the ordeals of the poor and the less-privileged of society when they themselves are millionaires many times over?

Will they have the moral ground to stand before these people and say “Don’t worry, I feel your pain”?

And will they necessarily retain a sense of humility and eagerness-to-serve when they are being so handsomely-paid?

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is extremely hard.

I think these are the issues we need to look at.