Singapore's
Money culture
The impending cabinet pay hike shows how much money is prized in Singaporean culture. By Aaron Ng.
Dec 3, 2006

The issue of the ministerial pay salaries (had led) me to think about how much money is prized in Singaporean culture.

Our government leaders have constantly emphasised that we need to pay our talents well, because if we don’t do that, we lose them to the private sector. Now, this is a very dangerous line of argument.

You mean to say that our government leaders’ motivation to serve is because the remuneration offered is comparable to that of the private sector?

While I agree that we cannot pay our government leaders peanuts because they indeed shoulder many heavy responsibilities, I cannot agree with the rhetoric that we have to pay them well because of the possibility of losing them to the private sector.

Government and public office is not just any job like that in the corporate world. It is more of a calling to serve the greater good of your nation.

However, in Singapore, because of obsession with money culture, even serving the country by stepping forward into public office is to be measured in terms of how much the pay is relative to the private sector.

I stand by the idea that if you want to hold public office, the last thing that should be on your mind is remuneration.

It never fails to amuse me that our Prime Minister is probably more well paid than the President of the United States. While I am respectful of the heavy responsibilities of our PM, I don’t think that his stress levels and responsibilities are comparable to the president of the United States.

Based on our money culture, the American president should logically be paid at least a hundred times of what our PM gets annually.

Well, the president of the United States is well-known to be underpaid. Look at how little money Bill Clinton had when he stepped down. However, it seems to me that the Americans understand that government and public office is a calling requiring personal sacrifices, and not some job like any other.

One should not expect to become extremely rich as a result of holding public office. If one does become rich after a life-time in public office, something is very wrong indeed.

I think that our government leaders should stop emphasizing on how lucrative the private sector pays compared to public sector. In doing so, we are perpetuating the money culture.
We will never be sure whether someone who is holding public office is there for the money, or there to serve. In fact, if you pay miserably and still someone is willing to step up there and serve, this is a person that the country can depend on.

Human greed knows no bounds. It doesn’t matter how much money we pay. By emphasizing material compensation, we are just fueling greed.

A greedy person has no allegiance to anyone else other than money. The next time a higher offer is being made, the greedy person will jump ship.

If a person chooses to become a government official because it pays well, if an enemy offers to double or triple the amount, who can gurantee that the official won’t jump ship and take with him state secrets to the enemy?

Of course, the earlier example is pretty extreme, but it serves to highlight the danger in dabbling with money culture. The solution to problems is not always more money. More money doesn’t mean greater loyalty or less chances of being corrupt.

Those with a strong sense of righteousness and commitment to public office won’t care less how much they are paid. Those without a sense of righteousness and commitment to public office will never be satisfied no matter how much they are paid.

As it is, I think our government ministers are already very well paid. Even an ordinary member of parliament gets more than S$10,000 a month. How many Singaporeans are in such an income bracket?

Relative to the Singaporean population, I believe that our government leaders are comfortably in the top quarter of Singapore society in terms of income bracket.

Is this amount of money not enough for them to lead a reasonably good life in exchange for their public service?

I don’t know what others think, but I think that there is a good balance already. To increase the salaries any more will send out the wrong signals about public office in Singapore.

(Aaron Ng is a final year undergraduate at the Communications and New Media Programme, National University of Singapore. He is currently the managing editor of The Campus Observer, an editorially independent paper operating in NUS.)

Comments (Extracts)

Daniel Says:
That’s a very good article.
If the leaders themselves don’t even set good example, why should they coax us into accepting peanuts? Not unless they are elite and protect by their own system.
It’s so pretty obvious to me that MPs are there for money first, and sure enough, policy implement is also about money.
If the country couldn’t get good people to serve the country, it implies that there's something wrong with constitution, not globalisation...
Seems to me lately, people forget about Shin Corp and Optus losses, that’s what I call master of distraction. The positive news and propagada makes people forget the losses. In the next election, the same trick will be used.

Hai~Ren Says:
Money makes the world go around
The world go around
The world go around…

Devil's Advocate Says:
Aaron wrote:
“The solution to problems is not always more money. More money doesn’t mean greater loyalty or less chances of being corrupt. Those with a strong sense of righteousness and commitment to public office won’t care less how much they are paid.”
Altruism and the calling to public service is crucial, as you say.
By that reasoning, there is absolutely no justification for doctors and nurses to be paid more than a comfortable living wage. $3,000 per month is plenty (after all, doesn’t that add up to approximately the median wage?), and no healthcare worker should be paid more than this.
And actually, why *are* we paying civil servants so much anyway? Let’s cap that at $3,000 too, the median salary of the population. They’re from the people, serving the people, and they should be paid the average salary of the people.
Do you support this line of argument? If not, why?
Your benchmark figure of “top quarter” makes out to a cutoff household income of $7,000, according to the General Household Survey 2005.
Should we cap pay for Ministers and Civil Servants at $7,000 per month?

Layman Says:
As always, we are reminded of how wonderful our bunch of leaders are and how they deserve the best salaries in the world. So money has become a factor in the determination of a minister’s capabilities.
Most bosses will hold any pay rises unless it is necessary to retain or reward those who really contribute to the profits of the company. By contributions, I am referring to the employees’ ideas to increase productivity and profits.
Most of these ministers are followers of the leader (yes men), window-dressers (media co*k talkers), planners (of leaders’ ideas), workload allocators (more work to the peasants), budget planners (less money for the peasants), red tape creators (less trouble for gov), baby kissers, and many other nonsense stuff.
The senior leader KNOWS that the new generation office holders are NOT motivated to serve but to be employed. Money always change the weaker hearts. Some have realised that money do smell good, and “screwed whatever principles”.
Maybe the leaders realised that some ministers are living beyond their means (remember one minister buying too many properties) and are using this proposed increase to help them along. Mortgage payments can be quite stiff…

Jolly Jester Says:
Aaron:
Some figures concerning ministers’ pay that I got off the blogosphere…
Note that most of these are from 5 yrs ago, but I am not sure if they have changed, or have stayed static. To my surprise, I recall seeing one recent MSM article using similar figures for current ministerial salaries, so maybe they have stayed static, or it may just be sloppy reporting.
Singapore President’s Basic Salary US$1,500,000 (SGD$2,507,200)
Singapore Prime Minister’s Basic Salary US$1,100,000 (SGD1,958,000)
Minister’s Basic: US$655,530 to US$819,124 (SGD1,166,844 to SGD1,458,040) a year
Average Singaporean: US$26,000 (SGD43,104 or SGD3,592 per mo) Source: Singapore Ministry of Manpower
PM Lee
Salary as Prime Minister $2million yearly
Salary as Finance Minister $1.2million yearly
Variable Bonus: 6months salary minimum yearly
Full Medical Benefits - Private Specialist Consultant on regular standby - Yearly cost to tax payers $200,000
Security cost: Approximately $1.5million yearly
First class travel and stays at top hotels when he travels on business trips
United States of America
President: Increased to US$400,000 on Jan. 20, 2001, with US$50,000 expenses
Vice President: US$202,900
Cabinet Secretaries: US$157,000
United Kingdom
Prime Minister: US$170,556
Ministers: US$146,299
Australia
Prime Minister: US$137,060
Deputy Prime Minister: US$111,439
Treasurer: US$102,682
Source: Asian Wall Street Journal July 10 2000.
Singapore President’s salary which was updated in 2005 from the Singapore Straits Times.

darkness Says:
Money isn’t really the central issue. I personally don’t even mind if a minister gets paid over and above the market rate in the private sector.
The issue has everything to do with value - or rather the perception of value.
Are we getting value for money?
This naturally turns on the question of how innovative and creative the government is at generating value for the population.
Creativity and innovation doesn't necessarily mean supporting high tech research. It could be something very mundane and ordinary like freeing up more commercial space to lower the cost of starting small businesses in Singapore - improving the supply chain management in hospitals to lower down the cost of healthcare - providing rebated travel rates during off peak hours - opening avenues for alternative sources of energy other than relying 100% on fossil fuels by cutting down on bureaucratic red tape - or even something as basic as freeing up more study space in the national library in Bugis etc.
This of course means someone has to get off their backsides and really start to do some real work to generate “value” for the rest of us.

YCK Says:
Well, we may suspect that in other countries politicians get ‘donations’ from lobby groups, i.e. money just comes later, but how much could that be compared to Singapore’s case?
Are these foreign politicians really more corruptible?
Are they serving three masters: the state, their patrons and themselves, compared to just two for Singaporean politicians? Could anyone give some statistics?
How much more should you pay for someone’s incorruptibility? Is it a case of diminishing returns? Beyond a certain amount, it may make little difference.

Aaron Ng Says:
I would say that people are still motivated to serve, but the expectation of remuneration has gone higher. I do hope that people see public office as a service, and they can serve out a few terms of office doing something for the good of society before returning back to the private sector to earn big bucks.

Aaron Ng Says:
Hi YCK,
It’s just something that struck me when I was reading some blogs online.
I think our ministers are being paid quite well, and I’m not sure if increasing pay is the way to go. If the economy is indeed doing well, I think that giving a bigger bonus is a better idea than wage increase.
Wage increase should be given if, in the words of darkness, the “value” of the minister has increased.
Of course, how to decide whether the value of our leaders have increased is another matter altogether.

Layman Says:
Ah, the vaule for money.
The question is who set the value of these office holders. The senior leaders or the common people. If we set the standards for them, they will be quite high, being the way we are. So, the value is determined by the senior leaders.
With all the high salaries, we expect exceptionally talented people but then exceptionally talented people would not want to be in the government.
High salaries create the perception of highly talented persons are working for the good of the country, as compared to the really talented people in the private sector, except that “shareholders” in this case cannot fired the directors of Singapore Inc.
What we want to see “real talent”, most will not care about the salaries given out if they really have “real talent”.
So, are we getting the value for money for “the talent being displayed by the ministers”? If you want a pay rise, perform well first. Like respect, it is not given, it is earned.

Dr. Huang Says:
I get exhausted just thinking of the obscene amount of money that ministers get.
The whole crap about how much these people sacrifice to be in the Cabinet is also a whole lot of BS.
If you believe this BS, then all private surgeons would be multi-millionaires as those doctors in the Cabinet supposedly took a hefty pay cut to join the poliburo. Really hilarious. Dr.Huang

sad man Says:
Dr Huang, you joking or not?
I thought Ng Eng Hen, Vivian and Baladji are all top notch millionaires already, who needed to be tempted by $$ to serve Singapore? Was that a lie?

Aaron Ng Says:
Hi Dr Huang,
I’m not in a position to put a value on how much money our ministers should be paid, but I do know that it’s very high already (as evident from Jolly Jester’s figures above) and to increase it further is really unwarranted.
I mean, the cabinet ministers do work hard, but is it worth more than a million dollars a year? In fact, I would like to know if all cabinet ministers actually can earn that amount of money in the private sector after leaving office?
My gut feel is that most of them are probably not going to earn that kind of money, unless they are in some specialised profession.

Observer Says:
If tomorrow, the ministers salary be suddenly reduced to $1 pm, do you think they’ll give up their office or lofty calling and be any lesser in their jobs?
I doubt so. I do not see Minister Mentor/Senior Minister relinguishing the seductive powers and excitment of politics (a disputable reward in itself). In fact, I wager that he may even donate a portion of his wealth to charity, if need be, to stay in power.
The stratospheric salary is more useful for suing their political opponents to bankrutcy than providing a quality of living, which most of these able politicians already enjoyed before entering politics.
Money (ridiculous amount) thus is a neccessary power for the weak and insecure.

passerby Says:
Money or no money… if it is a true calling in one’s life… the person will answer the call no matter what!
For these people, money is never an issue and too much of it, actually becomes an embaressment and an insult to their high calling!
It is these with the true callling that are greatly needed in politics (not beholden to money will give an entirely different twist to the current political scene) - not those who won’t be corrupted only because their thirst for money has been justifiably satisfied.

For full discussions please read:
http://aaron-ng.info/blog/the-singaporean-money-culture.html