The Online Citizen A Community of Singaporeans
This is filed under “Letters To TOC”.
Firstly, I cannot understand or accept the PM's and MM's logic or rationale for the incredible pay hike for our cabinet ministers.
Why do they want us to believe that our cabinet ministers are that avaricious, corruptible, self-serving and mercenary, and so open to the highest bidders?
In justifying the astronomical pay for our cabinet ministers the PM and MM use the arbitrary - and questionable - device of benchmarking their pay with the top earners in the top professions, including, I understand, top CEOs.
Have they considered this point: the top pay cited for top CEO or top professional in the private sector was only for the top honcho, i.e. only for the head of the corporation or practice, and not for everyone of his managers.
In that case and by the same token, only the Prime Minister of Singapore Inc. should be treated as the CEO or top dog of the business and be given such excessive remuneration.
The other ministers, being heads of department in Singapore Inc., should, therefore, be given salaries/perks commensurate with that of Singapore Inc's heads of department.
The Spore Govt's benchmarking formula - and application - therefore appears tenuous, to put it mildly. If it is really justifiable, then it must logically follow that every head of dept in an Exxon-type of corporation would, therefore, be paid like the chairman of Exxon.
Yeo Toon Joo