PAP: Further shift in Workers' Party's stance

The People's Action Party (PAP) on Saturday criticised the Workers' Party's (WP) clarifications on its stand on ministerial pay, saying they represent yet another shift in stance.

In a post on his Facebook page on Saturday, Mr Lawrence Wong, chairman of the PAP's publicity and publications sub-committee, said he was 'surprised' to read in The Straits Times the WP's new explanation of why it chose the pay of MX9 (Superscale) civil servants as the benchmark for its salary formula.

Quoting the ST article, Mr Wong wrote: 'Mr Giam says that 'WP had chosen the MX9 pay even though it was pegged to that of high-income earners in the private sector'. This differs from their explanation in Parliament, where Mr Giam and his WP colleagues claimed that MX9 represented the 'general wage level' of Singaporeans.'

Mr Wong rebutted this claim, comparing the WP's estimate of the MX9 salary of $11,000 a month with median income.