Political Salaries

There is too much to read on the ongoing debate on Ministers' Pay.

If doctors, lawyers, accountants etc., the highly skilled class of professionals were badly paid we wouldn't have enough of them for our needs.

We like to idealized doctors, teachers and religious leaders, but often we are taken back to reality when they fail and not that infrequently these days.

Our ideals keep us alive and assure our tomorrow; but to get there we need to get real too. We cannot have enough competent leaders. It is a problem even for the nations with abundant talent. In fact, we might even have to bring on board less than honest ones because of their special gifts. Once in the team, more senior leaders have to protect and ring fenced these weak but gifted members from temptation.

Over time, I hope to see political salaries fall. Also private sector pay for top executives is a historical anomaly. That phase will pass.

If we cannot broaden our bench of talent then our educational policies have failed us abysmally.

Today pay is an important factor for attracting and retaining leaders. We are sorely lacking in idealism when political leaders must be motivated with huge performance bonuses. I am sure this will return to haunt them just as a bonus calculated on GDP growth had created a lopsided and unhappy situation of our people.

Every society need some myths to keep it alive. We mustn't get too real or we become no better off than the animal kingdom. It is our idealism and holy grails that drives our evolution to adapt and become better. If we and we have been failing to invest in these, we shall disappear quite soon. Why condemn ourselves to Darwinian terms? You can't get more myopic than that. I remember LKY considered the SSO a waste of money but GKS had pushed hard for it.

Personally I prefer the WP approach to paying ministers. The PAP one is deeply flawed and a danger to the survival of our society even beyond the medium term. It is cynical about the human resource we can produce and a slap in the face of what we have been doing in our school system. Today it is the thousands of good families in Singapore that is defending our old fashioned values against a mercantile and fretful government.

If we have to bribe people to serve then we don't deserve to last. We must not throw overboard our values so easily in a storm, like siting two casinos here. Get rich quick schemes and quick fixes (think going overboard with FTs) don't last and minsters' bonuses tied to annual KPIs are simply being hypocritical about working for the long term.

You can pay the ministers anyway you want but if they are perceived to enjoy the upside and never the downside, this whole compact will fall apart. So for the sake of our future, I hope this would not be the last pay review exercise.