Our Poor Ministers

So now we know the true reason for the increase in GST. It is to fatten the already big paycheck to our ministers. The justification is that the pay of all these ministers and perm secs have been lagging far behind the private sector (which in this specific case means that their pay is way below the two-third mark of the average pay of the top 6 earners in 8 different categories). Yawning bread gives a very good critique of why such a way of benchmarking even if we accept the methodology is flawed. But here I would like to question the rationale of this way of pegging the ministers' pay to the top earners of the private sector.

The Argument of "Value Creation" to the Economy: One argument goes that, it is ok to pay millions and millions every year to the ministers every year because the value they created to the economy is much more than that. The GDP of Singapore for 2006 was about SGD 214 billion. If we take GDP growth to be 5% for 2007, the increase in GDP in absolute terms would be about $10 billion. Obviously when the ministers talk about the "value" they are creating for the economy, they are referring to this increase in GDP of about $10 billion which naturally dwarfs the amount that is paid to all these ministers. First even if we accept that this is how we measure our ministers by, it would still come across as being most presumptuous to state that the work of all these ministers are single-handedly responsible for this increase in GDP by $10 billion. Of course, none of the ministers ever said that in such an upfront way but the implication is there. So Singapore's economic growth is not the result of all these factors like economic growth of our key trade partners like USA and has nothing to do with the efforts of the private sector or anything at all. Our super ministers achieved all that on their own. Taking one step back, is it right to measure our ministers just by "GDP growth"? GDP growth is afterall just one indicator of the standard of living of the average citizen. What use is GDP growth if a significant number of people in the country does not benefit? We know for a fact that the lower 30 percentile of our population has seen their real income decrease for the past few years. Is it not a slap in the face to all these people when the ministers congratulate themselves for a job "well done" and load millions on themselves while the people who vote them in suffer?

The Argument of Sacrifice: This is basically the argument that our ministers actually make a lot of sacrifice, especially financially to join politics and run this country. Particularly, those poor surgeons, lawyers and previous senior managers of govt-linked companies who have seen their pay plummet to a "mere" $1 million. What a great sacrifice! But of course this assumes that all that one looks for in a career (already there is the assumption here that going into politics is like making a rational career choice, forget the crap about serving the public ok?) is just money. We know even instinctively that is not true. Even selfish money grubbing corporate animals when they are in the league of earning millions look beyond the money. Once you are in the league of millionaires, many people would also be interested in power and leaving behind a legacy. These are two important "rewards" to being a minister and we cannot easily put a dollar value to them, so are our ministers really so short-changed when they are still paid a million currently? And not to forget that even after they step down from ministerial posts, listed companies would be falling over themselves to have them sitting on their board. Oh what great sacrifice!

The Argument of Ministers as CEOs: This argument is that ministers are like CEOs of companies. Even though we pay them a hell lot of money, they are expected to perform or they would be booted out in the next general election so really we should not be too concerned as there is accountability here. The analogy is that the citizens are like the board of directors and shareholders of the company and that we can easily change the CEO if he screws up. This argument is even worse than the above two for its insult to the intelligence of Singaporeans. If we have a political climate that allows the opposition to easily take over the government in a general election, like say in Japan and to think of it, most countries that call themselves democratic, such an argument might make sense. But of course, that is not the way it works here. So how it happens is that, the ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister is appointed by the ruling party. And don't forget that general election takes place once every five years while a CEO can be changed anytime. When a CEO screws up, he is forced to resign in shame. Can we do the same to a minister?

These are just 3 critiques to those arguments that have been used by politicians to justify giving themselves bigger rewards. I am sure there are other better arguments out there in blogsphere and in the net (Forget about looking at the broad sheets which have as usual act as a lapdog for their political masters and are always happy to sing the same tune). Of course, all these anger in cyberspace changes nothing and being predictable Singaporeans who have been conditioned to think that the country would collapse into economic chaos, be invaded by Malaysia and Indonesia, get bombed to the moon by terrorists, among other things if PAP ever loses power, we would continue to vote them in at the next GE in 2011. We deserve the government we choose.