The Committee to Review Ministerial Salaries has proposed that the Prime Minister's annual salary be cut by 36%, the President's annual salary be cut by 51%, the Minister's annual salary be cut by 37% and the salary of a new minister be benchmarked to 60% of median income of top 1,000 Singapore citizens. Everybody hates pay cut but even after this proposed pay cut, our PM will still earn a whopping S$2.2 million a year and that is still more than what any other world leader is earning.
So what is enough to attract political talent in Singapore then? Is it all about the money? Grace Fu, the Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, and the Environment and Water Resources writes this on her Facebook: "When I made the decision to join politics in 2006, pay was not a key factor. Loss of privacy, public scrutiny on myself and my family and loss of personal time were. The disruption to my career was also an important consideration. I had some ground to believe that my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living even though I experienced a drop in my income. So it is with this recent pay cut. If the balance is tilted further in the future, it will make it harder for any one considering political office." Go figure!