Posts tagged: public service
publichouse.sg:
We have lost faith in the system.
That’s how Mr Laurence Wong and Mr Paul Liew described their feelings about the way the police have handled the assault case which they were involved in.
Remember the US SEC’s indifference when a member of the public raised concerns over Madoff’s ponzi scheme for over 10 years?
Yahoo!:
We’ve tallied up a list of Asia Pacific’s highest paid politicians based on figures from a number of publicly available sources including The Economist.
Singapore still tops the chart by a margin, even after a pay cut.
Siew Kum Hong:
There have always been two types of criticisms leveled at ministerial salaries. The first category comprised criticisms of the formula itself, that it led to distortions and did not achieve the outcomes we wanted. These are technical criticisms that implicitly endorsed the principle of pegging ministerial salaries at a discount to supposedly equivalent private-sector salaries.
The second category comprised criticisms of the absolute amount of ministerial salaries, which are seen as being excessive in their absolute amounts and completely out of touch with normal Singaporeans. These are political criticisms that will persist regardless of the formula used, because they stem from a fundamental perception that the absolute salaries are simply unjustifiably high, regardless of the formula used.
Agreed.
The Telegraph:
Critics immediately swamped online forums to slam the new salary scheme, which was recommended by an independent committee whose proposals Lee has agreed to implement.
“Ordinary minister’s salary still higher than US President! Still too high! Pure Nonsense!” wrote a reader who signed off as Lim Lao Pe on the Yahoo! Singapore portal.
Honest article title.
The Worker’s Party:
Rather than an approach that assumes top earners are also top talent, WP recommends a whole-of-government, people-up approach to determining ministerial salaries.
WP has identified this approach in the way 12 developed economies determine their politicians’ salaries. The economies are Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In most of these economies, a minister’s salary is set at multiples of that of an MP, which is in turn set at the salary of a senior management grade in the civil service. This is the approach that Singapore should take, as political office is in the genre of public service.
WP proposes that MPs’ allowances should be pegged to the salaries of divisional directors in the Civil Service (excluding the Administrative Service)2. Civil service salaries are currently competitively benchmarked to general wage levels of Singaporeans. The salaries of ministers and the Prime Minister should be set at reasonable multiples of an MP’s allowance.
WP is supportive of a variable component which takes into account both national objectives being achieved through a whole-of-government effort, as well as the individual performance of ministers. While the suggested National Bonus incorporates some indices, WP believes that the formula should reflect that some national goals are longer-term in nature, requiring an assessment over the term of a government, not annually; some bonus payments may need to be deferred. We also propose to do away with the Annual Variable Component as this is unnecessary, since there is already a National Bonus based on national economic outcomes. The sum of the total variable components should be capped at a reasonable number of months.
WP further believes that the procedure for any review or change of the salary structure for political office should be transparent and subject to Parliamentary approval.
Very reasonable and sound proposals.
It is not enough to throw money at the problem, launching one project after another. For example, the Jurong East Interchange modification project cost S$800 million and took two years to build, but now that it is completed, will be operated only two hours each weekday morning to relieve the peak load. Around December, it may open for two or more hours in the evening to cope with the evening rush. In other words, nearly a billion dollars have been spent for a project with relatively low utilisation
A very good illustration on why throwing money at any issue will not solve the underlying cause of problems.
