May 29, 2011
Your letters
I refer to last Sunday's report ('Ministerial pay to be reviewed'), which quoted Mr Gerard Ee, the head of a committee to review ministers' salaries, as saying that 'whatever we work out, the final answer must include a substantial discount on comparable salaries in the private sector and people looking at it will say, 'these people are serving and making a sacrifice''.
There is a jewellery shop here known for advertising huge discounts. But it is an open secret that its prices are highly inflated. The discount is only a marketing gimmick.
We do not need discounts if the salaries of ministers are set to fairly reflect the worth of their jobs. It is questionable to peg their salaries to inappropriately high pay, and then reduce these with 'discounts'.
One's pay should be commensurate with the job, and one should be held 100per cent responsible to deliver on it. We should have no qualms paying for performance, not because it is necessary to attract the right people, but because it is fair. What is currently lacking is the penalty when ministers fail to deliver. Ministers should have clearly publicised and closely monitored key performance indicators relevant to their jobs.
[With CEOs of corporations, where the bottom line is clearly profit, you can make such stupid, lame, seemingly intelligent statements with phrases like "pay for performance", "penalty for failure to deliver", "key performance indicators". What the elections have show is that people want a more consultative government, which is not a KPI or if it were a KPI, would be subject to manipulation. Imagine, relentless consultation with the people and no decision or action. On the other hand imagine quick decisions and action but with complaints of no consultation. How do you balance such demands and reduce it to a KPI? or two contradictory KPIs?]
While the current pay formula already includes gross domestic product growth, it should also incorporate other economic indicators, such as inflation rates, housing price indices, employment figures and median wages of citizens in all income brackets.
These would better correlate the Government's performance, and thus ministers' salaries, with the well-being of the majority, rather than a small minority who benefit the most each year.
With the right salary formula, it will be bizarre to deliberately underpay ministers just so that people can see them as making a sacrifice - this makes a mockery of the meaning of sacrifice.
Chen Junyi
[But that is what the hoi polloi wants. And that is politics.]
Your letters
I refer to last Sunday's report ('Ministerial pay to be reviewed'), which quoted Mr Gerard Ee, the head of a committee to review ministers' salaries, as saying that 'whatever we work out, the final answer must include a substantial discount on comparable salaries in the private sector and people looking at it will say, 'these people are serving and making a sacrifice''.
There is a jewellery shop here known for advertising huge discounts. But it is an open secret that its prices are highly inflated. The discount is only a marketing gimmick.
We do not need discounts if the salaries of ministers are set to fairly reflect the worth of their jobs. It is questionable to peg their salaries to inappropriately high pay, and then reduce these with 'discounts'.
One's pay should be commensurate with the job, and one should be held 100per cent responsible to deliver on it. We should have no qualms paying for performance, not because it is necessary to attract the right people, but because it is fair. What is currently lacking is the penalty when ministers fail to deliver. Ministers should have clearly publicised and closely monitored key performance indicators relevant to their jobs.
[With CEOs of corporations, where the bottom line is clearly profit, you can make such stupid, lame, seemingly intelligent statements with phrases like "pay for performance", "penalty for failure to deliver", "key performance indicators". What the elections have show is that people want a more consultative government, which is not a KPI or if it were a KPI, would be subject to manipulation. Imagine, relentless consultation with the people and no decision or action. On the other hand imagine quick decisions and action but with complaints of no consultation. How do you balance such demands and reduce it to a KPI? or two contradictory KPIs?]
While the current pay formula already includes gross domestic product growth, it should also incorporate other economic indicators, such as inflation rates, housing price indices, employment figures and median wages of citizens in all income brackets.
These would better correlate the Government's performance, and thus ministers' salaries, with the well-being of the majority, rather than a small minority who benefit the most each year.
With the right salary formula, it will be bizarre to deliberately underpay ministers just so that people can see them as making a sacrifice - this makes a mockery of the meaning of sacrifice.
Chen Junyi
[But that is what the hoi polloi wants. And that is politics.]
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