Saturday, January 07, 2012

My 2 cents worth on Singapore Ministerial Salaries

TADA!!!

Come on ....You knew this post would be inevitable.... I simply cannot resist. :D

However, I have great news for you. I won't be putting forward a detailed post for 2 reasons:

1. I haven't had a chance to review the proposed changes in any detail except for the very summarized newspaper article that I saw on My Paper....(Yes....我报...:D), so I acknowledge that any comments from me now speaking on specifics of the recommendation would not be as informed as I would like.
2. I chanced upon Siew Kum Hong's blog post (and despite my earlier admittance in point 1 to be rather ignorant about the full recommendations formed by the committee), I do have my preliminary assessment and I feel that SKH has so perfectly articulated my sentiments, if not the general "feel" from the ground. 

Therefore, with the above disclaimer in mind, please proceed at your own peril.

To summarize, I'm very appreciative that most of our leaders have very graciously stepped out to openly accept the recommendations or have opted to respect the general population and adopt silent acceptance. (but as Grace Fu has kindly demonstrated, there are always exceptions) 

My personal view is that the pay cut is quite significant so it must hurt in one way or another. In the first place, no one ever complains that money is too much or enough, right? Don't believe me? Ask Jack Neo. 

However, with that said, in spite of the pay cut, dear leaders....you do know that you are still being paid a shit-load of money, don't you? As I know it, even with the pay cut, our leaders remain the highest paid group of politicians IN THE WORLD and really...your income is still *fill in your preferred curse words* obscene compared to the average Singaporean. Please forgive me if I fail to sympathise with your "predicament". 

(And yes I know that Grace Fu is taking alot of flake from netizens over her facebook post but to the likes of Grace "I'm so misunderstood" Fu, if you are not happy, go back to the private sector. No one is stopping you.)

Now that I've gotten that off my chest. Let me continue....:D

In conclusion, yes. While the change in formula to determine the ministerial salary has indeed tipped the scale "oh-so-very slightly" back from EXTREMELY OUTRAGEOUS towards just being plain OUTRAGEOUS, I believe that the general consensus of the masses is that these changes have not  fully addressed the problem. True enough, there will always be that group of people who will never be satisfied no matter what you do but as Siew Kum Hong explains in his post, I believe in this case, there are valid reasons to explain why this problem will not simply be swept under the carpet.



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