High Ministerial Salaries: Wrong Assumptions For Wrong Pay?

{The art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economic sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor.  ….. John Ruskin}

The reasons for paying very high salaries for Singapore ministers are based on various wrong assumptions.

They assume ministers are super human beings that can work 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They assume these political holders are productive and efficient every seconds, no sick leave, no emotional problem, like machines operating without any maintenance.  Furthermore, they assume these people are as enterprise as entrepreneurs, risking and scarifying their carriers, family and friends.

The PAP government got the assumptions so wrong that they pay the wrong salaries to their ministers.  If you examine the reasons and assumptions, they are all wrong.  Why wrong?

Perhaps only a robot can justify for the assumptions of the working conditions described above.  Even that, a robot still needs some maintenance and definitely, a robot will not have the enterprise spirit of venturing out and risk powerless to function effectively and efficiently.

Hence, if you can’t fulfill these assumptions, it is better not to assume high salaries for the wrong reasons.  You have overpriced your intelligence, capability, productivity, judgments, body and mental condition, and most importantly your power base.     

  

This is like the corporate world.  The top corporate leaders are pricing themselves above the market rate, especially in the financial and property sectors.  They think that they are top talents in the world and so they demand top world class salaries. However, they create crisis after crisis, debts after debts, and so we see the results of ‘Occupy Movements’.   

To protect themselves and justify for their top salaries, these CEOs, CFOs, Chairmen and Presidents have to engage in many PR activities which are not productive in their works. 

To be fair, we have to differentiate business corporate managers and entrepreneurs.  There are justifications for entrepreneurs getting high rewards and compensation.  Entrepreneurs are taking risks and they may end up as a bankrupt.  This is why people are admiring entrepreneurs like Bill Gate and are not so against their richness. 

The government is paying high salaries to our ministers. They are only able to do it because they assume that they have the mandate from the people.  However, the mandate is not always in your favour, and it is subject to change.  Even there is a review in the ministerial salaries; it may still keep and continue with the wrong assumptions.  As a result, the old problem of high and wrong salaries is still there. 

Who know one day more and more will see the wrong assumption for the wrong pay. When more and more people disagree with the wrong assumptions of the PAP, more will like to see the change to take place.