The Workers' Party (WP) said the recommendations of the Committee to Review Ministerial Salaries are a step in the right direction towards grounding political leaders with a stronger sense of public service and mission.
It hopes Ministers and MPs will see political office primarily as a noble undertaking which allows them to improve the lives of fellow Singaporeans, rather than as a career option to be weighed against high-earning individuals in the private sector.
However, it said the Committee's proposal to peg ministers' salaries to the 1,000 top income earners has created a flawed formula.
It said these individuals make up just 0.06 per cent of the workforce and are unrepresentative of the general population.
The incomes of these "super-rich" Singaporeans generally rise much faster than the rest of the population, potentially escalating the salaries of ministers in subsequent years.
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.
The WP said it 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 Singapore should take, as political office is in the genre of public service, said the WP.
The WP proposed that MPs' allowances be pegged to the salaries of divisional directors in the civil service excluding the Administrative Service.
Civil service salaries are currently competitively bench-marked 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, said the WP.
The opposition party said that it is supportive of a variable component which accounts for both national objectives achieved through a whole-of-government effort, as well as the individual performance of ministers.
While the suggested National Bonus incorporates some indices, the WP said the formula should reflect that some national goals are longer-term in nature, requiring an assessment over the term of a government and not annually, while some bonus payments may also need to be deferred.
The WP also proposed doing away with the Annual Variable Component, saying that this is unnecessary since there is already a National Bonus based on national economic outcomes.
It said the sum of the total variable components should be capped at a reasonable number of months.
The WP also believes that the procedure for any review or change of the salary structure for political office should be transparent and subject to parliamentary approval.
The opposition party said its MPs will expand on the above proposals when Parliament debates on the motion to adopt the Committee's recommendations on 16 January.
It hopes Ministers and MPs will see political office primarily as a noble undertaking which allows them to improve the lives of fellow Singaporeans, rather than as a career option to be weighed against high-earning individuals in the private sector.
However, it said the Committee's proposal to peg ministers' salaries to the 1,000 top income earners has created a flawed formula.
It said these individuals make up just 0.06 per cent of the workforce and are unrepresentative of the general population.
The incomes of these "super-rich" Singaporeans generally rise much faster than the rest of the population, potentially escalating the salaries of ministers in subsequent years.
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.
The WP said it 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 Singapore should take, as political office is in the genre of public service, said the WP.
The WP proposed that MPs' allowances be pegged to the salaries of divisional directors in the civil service excluding the Administrative Service.
Civil service salaries are currently competitively bench-marked 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, said the WP.
The opposition party said that it is supportive of a variable component which accounts for both national objectives achieved through a whole-of-government effort, as well as the individual performance of ministers.
While the suggested National Bonus incorporates some indices, the WP said the formula should reflect that some national goals are longer-term in nature, requiring an assessment over the term of a government and not annually, while some bonus payments may also need to be deferred.
The WP also proposed doing away with the Annual Variable Component, saying that this is unnecessary since there is already a National Bonus based on national economic outcomes.
It said the sum of the total variable components should be capped at a reasonable number of months.
The WP also believes that the procedure for any review or change of the salary structure for political office should be transparent and subject to parliamentary approval.
The opposition party said its MPs will expand on the above proposals when Parliament debates on the motion to adopt the Committee's recommendations on 16 January.
But MPs with multiply portfolios will only get one salary...
