Commentary
Why ministerial pay will never be a settled question in Singapore
Higher political salaries can widen the Republic’s ministerial talent pool, but only performance in office can keep justifying them
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As much as the heat in the Sept 10 debate will likely centre on formulae, benchmarks and bonus structures, the issue of ministerial salaries remains what it has been from the start in 1994: a political question requiring political persuasion, says the writer.
PHOTO: MDDI
The issue of ministerial salaries is such a political wedge in Singapore that it is never going to be something that can be “settled” once and for all.
In the last big debate on it in 2012, then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that even Lee Kuan Yew could not put the matter to rest permanently, despite a three-hour “bravura” performance in the 1994 debate that introduced the pegging of political salaries to those of top earners in the private sector.
