I’m taking out the new figures for senior civil servants and political appointees from the speech by Mr Teo Chee Hean. All figures quoted are annual salaries (inclusive of all bonuses and allowances).

President – $3,187,100 (24.9% increase)
Prime Minister – $3,091,200 (25.5% increase)
Senior Minister – $3,043,300 (13.5% increase)
Minister Mentor – $3,043,300 (13.5% increase)
Deputy Prime Minister – $2,452,500 (18.8% increase)
Minister/Senior Perm Sec – $1,593,500 (32.5% increase) [MR4 Grade]
Entry Superscale Grade – $384,000 (3.3% increase) [SR9 Grade]
Member of Parliament – $216,300 (23.2% increase)

I’m not going to say too much about the increase. I think it has come to a point where it’s just numbers.

Anyway, it seems that the public sector is really losing lots of talented and experienced people. Mr Teo said the following:

As I informed the House in March, the Civil Service is experiencing the effects of the tightening labour market. Our overall resignation rate has increased from 4.8% in 2005 to 5.7% in 2006. We are losing our lawyers, accountants and management executives. The resignation rate of the Management Executive Scheme (which employs graduate officers across the ministries) was 10.6%, up from 7.4% in 2005. At some of our entry grades, the situation is quite serious, with resignation rates as high as 25%. Members of the House would also have read from the newspapers that for our Home Team, there has been a 40% increase in the resignation of junior officers in January and February this year, compared to the same period last year.

To address the issue, Mr Teo outlined the measures to be taken:

Graduate officers on the Management Executive scheme work across all ministries performing a wide range of jobs, including policy development and implementation, corporate services and operations work. Salaries for this group of officers have fallen behind the market. We need to make an upward adjustment of 16% this year in order to level up. As a first step, we will halve the gap through a 5-8% adjustment. This will be in the form of a performance-based payment of 0.75-1.25 months of salary. Good performers will receive up to 0.75 month, which is equivalent to a 5% increase, and the better performers will receive up to 1.25 months.

The Home Affairs Uniformed Services, comprising the Police, Prisons, Civil Defence and Narcotics services, are lagging their benchmarks by up to 26% in certain grades. As the gap is large, these services require major adjustments. These services are now dealing with more complex and challenging tasks given the threat of terrorism and the increased security measures required. We need to pay our home team officers competitively, so that the uniformed services will be well-staffed, and able to address any emergency. The first step of this adjustment will be carried out now, amounting to 10-13%.

Senior officers in the Home Uniformed Services will receive a performance-based payment of 1 – 1.5 months, with the higher quantum going to better performers. Junior officers will also receive performance-based payments ranging between 0.75 to 1.5 months. In addition, to address the market pay gap, we will increase their monthly salaries by 4% – 5%.

It’s perhaps fair to increase the salaries of civil servants by a high margin as one of the means to retain people in the public sector. What I don’t understand is that why are political appointees having such extremely high margins of increase as well. Is there an exodus of MPs and Ministers from the Singapore government over “insufficient” salary? If there are such MPs and Ministers, I don’t think the average Singaporean would really want them in government anyway.

I might really be kicking up a fuss over peanuts. As MM Lee recently said, what’s the big deal with paying $46 million to ensure that an economy of $210 billion functions properly? If governance is like private enterprise, then there’s no problem. The problem is that governance is NOT private enterprise. To serve as a minister, one needs to be elected, not employed. Public office is more about calling than financial incentives. If we are going to pay competitive market rates, then why bother to even elect ministers? Let’s just employ the smartest lawyers, bankers and CEOs to become ministers. In fact, why bother to have a government? Let’s just turn Singapore into a mega-corporation.

I appreciate the rationale that we need to remunerate talented people enough. However, the rhetoric will not do, especially when it’s taxpayers’ money that’s in question. I don’t oppose the increase for the average civil servant because there’s really a problem of exodus. I’m not convinced there’s such a problem among the political appointees. I worry that by continuously increasing and emphasizing the monetary rewards, motivation for political office in Singapore becomes primarily about money, and not duty to serve. One day, we might really be putting out advertisements for the position of Prime Minister instead of holding an election.

Addendum:

Seiji-Rakugaki has drawn a brilliant cartoon about the direction of Singapore’s governance titled “$INGAPORE”. A light-hearted piece of enjoyment for all the anger. :D

$ingapore
Original Source: http://seijieiga.blogspot.com/2007/04/ingapore.html