Pay cuts 'likely' to hit Singapore leaders
Source: Agencies |
May 23, 2011, Monday
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SINGAPORE government leaders are likely to have a pay cut amid growing voter resentment toward millionaire Cabinet ministers, the chairman of a new committee reviewing salaries said yesterday.
The current formula for calculating ministers' pay will be scrapped, Gerard Ee told state-owned Channel NewsAsia.
"You can expect that in all probability, (salaries) would be cut," said Ee, who is chairman of Changi General Hospital.
Since the mid-1990s, minister salaries have been benchmarked to two-thirds of the median income of the top eight earners from six private sector professions - accounting, banking, engineering, law, local manufacturing companies and multinational corporations.
The formula turned Singapore's civil servants into some of the best paid in the world. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earns more than S$3 million (US$2.4 million) a year while rookie ministers have made almost S$2 million.
By comparison, the United States President Barack Obama has an annual salary of US$400,000.
Lee announced the pay review committee on Saturday, two weeks after the ruling People's Action Party won 60 percent of the vote in May 7 parliamentary elections, its lowest percentage since independence in 1965.
Singapore's leaders have long argued that high salaries are necessary to attract top performers to the government and reduce the temptation of corruption.
However, the million-dollar pay checks came to symbolize an out-of-touch government.
The current formula for calculating ministers' pay will be scrapped, Gerard Ee told state-owned Channel NewsAsia.
"You can expect that in all probability, (salaries) would be cut," said Ee, who is chairman of Changi General Hospital.
Since the mid-1990s, minister salaries have been benchmarked to two-thirds of the median income of the top eight earners from six private sector professions - accounting, banking, engineering, law, local manufacturing companies and multinational corporations.
The formula turned Singapore's civil servants into some of the best paid in the world. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earns more than S$3 million (US$2.4 million) a year while rookie ministers have made almost S$2 million.
By comparison, the United States President Barack Obama has an annual salary of US$400,000.
Lee announced the pay review committee on Saturday, two weeks after the ruling People's Action Party won 60 percent of the vote in May 7 parliamentary elections, its lowest percentage since independence in 1965.
Singapore's leaders have long argued that high salaries are necessary to attract top performers to the government and reduce the temptation of corruption.
However, the million-dollar pay checks came to symbolize an out-of-touch government.
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