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Comments: Mellanie Hewlitt
Sg_Review
16 Sep 2011
Below is a self-explanatory letter that was sent to the Straits
Times and copied to Mr Gerald Ee (who heads the committee to review
Ministerial Salaries), which was never published;
This message was forwarded to you by [email protected]
Date: 15 Sep 2011
From Goh Wee Soon
To: [email protected]
To: Gerard Ee
Re: PAP Ministers Salaries a National
Embarassment
Dear Sir, I recall some time in May 2011 that a committee was
purportedly set-up to review and address the very lucrative
salaries paid to our ministers. This has been a long overdue
exercise and brings back to me a discussion that I had with some of
my younger staff during the financial crisis in 2008.
You may recall that the 2008 financial crisis hit many private
companies and banks very hard. Many of us were forced to either
down-size our departments or effect pay-reductions to contain
operational costs. My bank (a state aided European bank) was no
exception and as a department head I had the burden of either
letting go redundant staff and informing existing staff that there
would be delays in bonus pay-outs and temporary pay-reductions
during this period.
As was expected the news was not well received especially
amongst staff who were laid-off. However what was totally
unexpected was the reaction of the remaining staff who were spared
from the retrenchment exercise. Not only were they not grateful,
several even asked why they should take a pay-cut. And it was even
more glaring that such objections came, not from the older married
staff members with children to support and heavy financial
responsibilities, but from the younger, single and more
impressionable employees.
I tried in vain to explain that this was a temporary situation
and that we should all be grateful of having a job in these
difficult times and that money was not all that important as we
should derive satisfaction from the value we add to the team. The
response from 2 young twenty-something year olds was loud and
immediate:
“Who says money is not important. This is Singapore, look at our
leaders and Ministers, they are paid million dollar salaries. Our
leaders themselves are doing this for the money. They definitely
don’t work just for the love of the country. Who are you to tell us
otherwise?”
I was left speechless for a moment to counter this argument as
there was truth in these words. But after a moment’s reflection I
replied;
“Yes this is Singapore and yes we have million dollar salaried
ministers. But ask yourselves these questions. Do you respect them?
Can you expect to turn to them in tough times like these? Do you
want to be like them at all?”
They were strangely silent as I think they did not expect such a
politically in-correct reply from me. I pressed on:
“Do you know what will happen to Singapore as a country if all the
citizens here adopt the same attitude as our million dollar
ministers? We will cease to exist as a financially viable business
center tomorrow!”
I have copied Mr Gerard Ee in this email in the hope that he can
take the above incident into account in his assessment of
ministerial salaries. This is sending the wrong message to our
citizens, especially the younger generation as they will adopt a
mercenary attitude towards all things in existence and we simply
cannot inculcate such shallow and material values.
I have never been so ashamed of our leaders before. And I share
this with you and with SPH knowing full well that this
letter and its contents will never be published. But I do hope that
you give some thought to this in your review process.
Goh Wee Soon
Comments: Mellanie Hewlitt
It has been some months since we received any news from the
PAP’s bogus committee that was setup in May 2011 as a
front to “review” obscene ministerial salaries.
The silence from Gerard Ee’s committe is defening, and perhaps
one difficulty poor Gerard may have is a yardstick for measuring a
reasonable benchmark for ministerial salaries. In fact there are
plenty of accurate yardsticks for the benchmarks available from
salary scales of ministers and leaders in civilised
democracies.
But poor Gerard is, for some unaccountable reason, unable to use
these measures. Of cause it does not help that the only other
countries with “leaders” with similiar remuneration scale all just
happen to be dictatorships from countries riddled with graft and
nepotism.
There is however some respite for poor Gerard and his bogus
running dog committee as a local benchmark has been offered from
Tan See Jay.
Now it will be interesting to see how Mr Ee and Singapore’s
propaganda media attempt to side step this embarassing situtation
and continue to remain willfully blind to the increasingly large
white elephant squatting in the middle of their small living
room.
Maybe these kids should be taught to distinguish between earning
a fair wage and sustaining ill-gotten loot of astronomical
proportions. To qualify for the latter, you do need to be related
to a certain fascist dynasty by blood/marriage...
