How much does Singapore spend on political appointments?
When Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced his new cabinet and political appointments last Monday (28 September), one of the moves involved appointing two ministers of equal standing to both the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the Ministry of Education (MOE).
The two new Education ministers, Ong Ye Kung and Ng Chee Meng, both won their seats for the first time in the recent General Elections. Two new Coordinating Minister posts were also created — for Economic and Social Policies, and Infrastructure, joining the previous Coordinating Minister for National Security.
In total, there are now 54 political appointments, including Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries. This is one more than the estimated number of political appointments in the Budget for 2015.
In the Budget delivered in February, the various ministries estimated the total expenditure for political appointments in the year to be $40 million, a slight increase over 2014’s revised figures of $38.9 million, according to figures from the Budget 2015 website.
Despite the number of politicians holding multiple portfolios, the Public Service Division (PSD) website states a political appointment holder would only receive one pay package, although they still get their Member of Parliament allowances because of the dual roles they perform.
According to revised figures for 2014, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) political appointments expenditure was around $150,000. In comparison, that of the Law Ministry was $2 million. Current Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam had previously held both the Foreign Affairs portfolio and the Law portfolio, retaining the latter in the new cabinet.
Any pay-matching?
There is also a make-up pay system, which gives the Prime Minister the flexibility to offer a higher salary "outside of the Ministerial salary ranges to an outstanding candidate from the private sector who may be drawing a significantly higher salary".
The system, which was introduced in 1989, was not used up to 2012, according to the PSD’s website. Yahoo Singapore reached out to the PSD last week to ask if this had changed with the new Cabinet appointments.
In an email reply on Wednesday, the PSD said there was “no other information available apart from what is already publicly available.”
Currently, the pay of an entry-level minister of the MR4 grade at the benchmark level is $55,000 monthly. This works out to an annual salary of $1.1 million, of which $715,000 is fixed and the remainder variable.
The benchmark is based on the median income of the top 1,000 income earners who are Singapore citizens, after a 40 per cent reduction, which the PSD says is to “reflect the ethos of political service”.
The salaries of the other political appointment holders are determined based on a ratio of the MR4 grade, which “reflect the roles and responsibilities of the different political appointment holders”.
Biggest, smallest spenders
According to the 2014 revised figures in the Budget, the Prime Minister’s Office has the largest expenditure for political appointments at $15.2 million. This is followed by MTI at $2.48 million and the Ministry of National Development at $2.44 million.
The ministry that spent the least on political appointments was the MFA, then the Ministry of Community, Culture and Youth at around $740,000, followed by both the MOE and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources at around $965,000.
The issue of politicians’ pay has been brought up many times, most recently earlier this year in Parliament.
MP Edwin Tong had asked if it was time to review the framework which determined political salaries, to which Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean replied that the Committee to Review Ministerial Salaries had recommended the framework be reviewed every five years. It was last reviewed in 2011, and the recommendations made in 2012.
Teo also revealed the benchmark MR4 salary should have increased to $1.2 million in 2014, but the government had kept it at the 2011 level of $1.1 million.
