Government, Workers' Party agree on ministerial pay: Teo Chee Hean
The government and the Workers’ Party (WP) agree on the broad principles by which ministerial pay is determined, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean on Monday (1 October).
Speaking in Parliament, the minister overseeing the civil service said that the current ministerial salary structure had been determined in response to the 2012 White Paper on Salaries for a Capable and Committed Government. The paper was authored by an independent committee appointed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
During the parliamentary debate on the Paper then, Teo noted that the WP had agreed on the three principles guiding the committee: salaries must be competitive, the ethos of political service entails making sacrifices, and there should be a clean wage, with no hidden perks.
“There was convergence in this House on both the principles as well as the quantum for ministerial salaries,” said the 63-year-old. “The formula put forward by the Workers’ Party in 2012 would have resulted in essentially the same total annual salary level for the MR4 entry-level minister as that recommended by the independent committee.”
However, the formula proposed by the WP would have had a higher fixed component of some 81 per cent, noted Teo. “This would have made the link between salary and performance weaker.” Currently, ministerial pay has a fixed component of 65 per cent.
The annual pay of political appointment-holders consists of five components: monthly salary, 13th month bonus, Annual Variable Component (AVC) based on Singapore’s economic performance, performance bonus and a national bonus based on four socio-economic indicators.
The performance bonus is determined by the PM, who consults with senior ministers in Cabinet. “(PM) takes into account the actual work that each political office holder does and the specific responsibilities assigned to him, as well as his contributions in Cabinet when we consider broader national issues,” said Teo.
Currently, the annual salary of an MR4 grade (entry level) minister stands at $1.1 million, while the Prime Minister earns $2.2 million. This is based on the assumption of an AVC of one month, good individual performance and the national bonus indicators being met. Teo stressed, “All the bonus components form part of, and are not in addition, to the total salary…(there are) no hidden salary components or perks.”
In March, Teo told Parliament that the government would maintain ministerial salaries at their current level.
‘An emotional issue, easily politicised’
Teo was responding to Marsiling-Yew Tee Member of Parliament Alex Yam, who had asked for a breakdown of the respective components of the salaries of ministers and the Prime Minister. Yam also wanted to know the amounts, in months of salary, paid for each component for each year from 2013-2017.
Last month, in a written response to Non-Constituency MP Leon Perera’s question, Teo had revealed that political office-holders received 4.1 months of performance bonus on average in 2017. The absolute amounts and the specific amount of bonuses for each minister were not provided.
“The government has always been transparent with the salary structure for political office holders…so there’s nothing secret about it, it’s transparent, it’s open,” said Teo on Monday. However, despite being pressed by Perera and the WP chief Pritam Singh, Teo did not reveal the exact amount in bonuses that political office holders received in each of the past five years.
“I would suggest to the Deputy Prime Minister that if we put out a dollar value, the prospect of more misinformation can be reduced,” said Singh, who sat on the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, which recently gave 22 recommendations on combating fake news.
Singh noted that certain websites had misinterpreted the response to Perera’s question, which was filed on 10 September. However, government fact-checking site Factually only corrected the misinformation six days later. Singh cited the committee’s ninth recommendation, “Public institutions should wherever possible provide information to the public in response to online falsehoods in a timely manner (and) communicate with the public in clear and comprehensible terms.”
Teo responded by calling Singh “slightly disingenuous”, given that the answer to Perera’s question had been misinterpreted by others. He then repeated his answers on the salary structure and later concluded, “Let us all agree that we agree.”
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