Minister pay cut justified?

Yes, it's trending on twitter and carried in newspapers all over the world, from Guardian to Bloomberg.
Everybody's talking about the seemingly massive 36% pay cut that Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has "agreed" to take.
While it's a long overdue step in the right direction, he remains, and by some orbital mile, the highest paid elected official on this planet. Still 4 times more than Barack Obama and 45 times that of Manmohan Singh.
But the root of the problem remains that many within the regime's ranks still think that high salaries are needed to attract the "best" talents to political office.
Such as one Grace Fu, who probably summed up what many of her colleagues feel:
"If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one considering political office."

Unfortunately, money cannot be the main motivation for joining politics. You are simply attracting candidates that will put the moolah before servitude. Such as this MP with 64 other jobs.

Personally, I think the pay cut is totally justified and there should be more to come.

GDP growth, the indicator that PAP swears by, is looking extremely weak going into 2012. Singapore could again be the first Asian country to go into a technical recession defined by two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
The party state has failed to diversify from the volatile and highly competitive electronics sector which makes up a massive 35% of non-oil  domestic exports.
Worryingly, the Purchasing Managers' Index or PMI, which measures future business activity, has been declining for 6 straight months.

Granted that if US and Eurozone growth tank in 2012, and if there were a hard landing in China, most economies of the world will be adversely affected.
Difference is that other leaders don't have million dollar salaries nor tell the US to put its fiscal house in order.
I can't help but notice the inverted commas around the word Mentor in this WSJ article.

Additionally, the SMRT debacles, Orchard floods, taxi fare hikes and persistent rise in cost of living speak volumes of the extremely disappointing performance by our Ministers.
This move may have swayed some citizens over to their side.
But please ask yourselves this: Imagine that you were all shareholders of this company called Singapore Inc. Would you continue to agree to pay directors (Ministers) the highest salary among their global counterparts millions of dollars for repeated sub par performance?

I agree with some Opposition parties' suggestion that in addition to top earners, the average salaries of bottom and average earners should also be incorporated into the salary calculation.
After all, the greatest leaders (arguably) didn't have seven figure pay packages: Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Tony Blair, Franklin D Roosevelt.....

Finally, an honourable mention to our dear President who apparently volunteered a 51% pay cut. Bravo!

The People's Association must have no association

The People’s Association (PA) was established in Singapore as a statutory board on 1 July 1960 to promote racial harmony and social cohesion.
It was supposed to be a non partisan group interested in fostering better ties between citizens of all races.

The PA also oversees various grassroots organisatoins like Citizens' Consultative Committees, Residents' Committees, Neighbourhood Committees etc.

Therefore, the mission of the PA is clearly non-partisan.

The Chairman is none other than PM Lee Hsien Loong himself.
What's worse, they've just added even more PAP MPs into the ranks.

Further, the PA is funded by grants via taxpayers' monies.

Because of the one-sided nature of PA, it's obvious that the grassroot leaders all toe the part line.
These activists are blamed for not passing on proper feedback to the Ministers. In all likelihood, they would rather paint the rosiest picture on the ground firstly to impress the Ministers and secondly to save them the trouble of explaining otherwise.
This has prompted PM Lee to openly defend the activists.

It can be argued that PAP activists are a huge factor in General Elections. Using taxpayers grants, they hire "volunteers" to go door to door, distribute pamphlets, attend rallies etc etc.

The end result is they end up representing the views of the PAP and alienate the views of non supporters. The goal of promoting social cohesion is invariably lost.

Therefore, I would like to request for a radical overhaul of the PA and committees under its charge.

1) The management of the PA should consist of memebers from each registered political party
2) The Chairman of the PA is decided by a popular vote
3) Disallow PA funds from being used for party campaigning during elections

Obviously, it's not going to be easy.
MM Lee once told Chinese Officials visiting Singapore to see how the former ran his country:

“They discover that the People’s Action Party (PAP) has only a small office in Bedok.

But everywhere they go, they see the PAP – in the RCs (residents’ committees), CCCs (citizens’ consultative committees), and the CCs (community clubs).”

That to me, smells of a party wanting to perpetuate it's grip on power indefinitely, regardless of the hard truths on the ground.

If PM Lee is sincere about engaging Singaporeans better, there's no better place to start than a total overhaul of the PA.



So why then is it OK for the PA management to include only PAP MPs?

Where Father does not meet son...

'If they choose (the opposition), then I say, good luck to them. They have five years to ruminate and to regret what they did. And I have no doubts they will regret it,' MM Lee

"I am running the election, MM is expressing his views" PM Lee











I'm guessing that MM Lee wouldn't be expressing many more of his views this GE.