The importance of the Singapore
Cabinet Ministers seem to be over-inflated, when compare their Job
Functions to that of the Cabinet Secretaries of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is merely a Special
Administrative Region - a state within a state - and do not
manage its External Defense nor Foregin Affairs - the Secretaries
can be compared closer to the Town Councils but on a super
scale.
Hong Hong as a Special Administrative Region is bigger in
population (6,940,432) and has a bigger area (land and sea area of
1,092 sq Km) than all of Singapore put together (692.7
sq Km); making the Hong Kong Cabinet to be more efficient than
our Singapore Cabinet - in terms of the annual productive output to
the numbers employed in the Cabinet, Civil Service, and local
admiistrators.
The Hong
Kong Cabinet has one Chief Executive and 14 Cabinet Secretaries
managing the entire Hong Kong - and without any further expenses to
have District Mayors; and with a Legislative Council
consisting of 60 seats.
Comparatively, the Singapore
Cabinet has one Prime Minister has 16 Cabinet Ministers, 1 MM
and 1 SM, and with
FIVE Mayors running enlarged Constituencies, with a
Parliament of 84 seats (of which 82 are held by the Ruling
Party).
The Hong Kong Administration manages an economy with a labor force
of 3.63 million; a GDP of US$253.1 Billion; and Reserves of Foreign
Exchange and Gold valued at US$132 Billion.
The Singapore Administration manages an economy with a labor force
of 2.4 million; a GDP of US$138.6 Billion; and a Reserves of
Foregin Exchange and Gold valued at US$134.6 Billion.
Comparing the
wages paid to those in the Singapore and Hong Cabinet - we see
the following figures :
Singapore Prime Minister's BASIC Salary: US$1,100,000 per
year
Hong Kong Chief Executive: US$416,615 per year
Singapore Minister's BASIC Salary: US$655,530 - US$819,124
Hong Kong Cabinet Secretaries: US$278,538 - US$315,077
Comparing the Hong Kong Chief Executive's salary with Senior
Minister GCT is not realistic; and if Singapore Ministers are drawn
from the business community - it is hardly the norm of local
companies to pay such high salaries that the Ministers are
paid.
In any case, the Hong Kong cabinet are similarly filled by talents
from the cream of their Community - and not necessarily Scholars
only - Dollar for Dollar, Hong Kong seems to be getting a bigge
bang for every dollar paid to their Administrators
If the salary of the Singapore Government has to be pegged to Hong
Kong, it will be a deep cut to filter out the humbug that
Singaporeans have been fed with to justify the high wages - that
its purpose is to stop corruption.
In actual fact, the very reason of stopping corruption is merely to
legitimize the raiding of the Reserves that has been painstakingly
built-up over the last 45 years, and it is heart breaking that this
nest egg should fall into someone else's hands.
They may as well "make hay, while the sun continue to
shine".
