Fundamentally wrong assumptions of govt about their salaries

last SG · 2007-01-31T10:15:03+00:00

The problem is..what can we do about it??

eyebuzz SG

Parapraxia? Mr. Green

robertteh SG

Yes, renationalising these GLCs or outsourcing is the way to go to now in order to restore the provisions of essential services to the citizens back to the people without all the scholars enjoying all the free-lunch self-reward at people's expense.

It is a shame that such free-lunches were being liberally spread nicely to all our scholars without proving their worth which Mah Bow Tan in increasing HDB prices and vehicle COE/ERP fees have cleverly told the people not to expect of the government.

Lefleche SG

No teacher earns $8000 a month, not even if u serve 30 years because pay is determined by career grade. each grade has a pay ceiling that cannot be exceeded, not unless u get promoted to the next grade.

to hit $8000, u need to be at least on the senior's edu officer grade 1A1, which is at least a vice-principal or more likely a principal of some years. and even then, it does not start off at $8k. u need to work towards that salary scale. unless u a are a scholar who becomes a principal or some director at 35, most teachers/civil servants will never smell this amount of money in their career.

most civil servants work hard (12-14 hours a day) doing real jobs and are regular pple getting regular pay. they dont share in the extraordinary rewards paid at the top to those who have elite background or the inner circle.

Hogzilla SG

But do you think all the civil servant are really deserving the pay?

Some are empty inside and stayed on the job because of the rice bowl. That a big boo boo.

Lefleche SG

Originally posted by Hogzilla:

But do you think [b]all the civil servant are really deserving the pay?

Some are empty inside and stayed on the job because of the rice bowl. That a big boo boo.[/b]

sure some dont. in every industry there will be. even some in the political leadership also dont deserve the pay right?

just cant tar all with the same brush lah.

Hogzilla SG

Ya lah. So must selective screening mah. Not because that person clever then give him scholarship to become teacher or officer. That person clever doesn't mean he (or she) can teach or lead right?

Lowclassman SG

This is one of the strategy of the ruling party in controlling of all major businesses, to reward its officials and winning more votes......... the persons in these organisations will also affect and influence thier friends, relatives and who ever!!!

Tiggerific SG

for one, certain people can stop going around blaming hikes on the increase of civil servant's pay. everyone knows that the increment is a paltry one. and that it's just a smokescreen to hide the inflation of the pay of the ministers.

Tiggerific SG

you're mixing up the scholars and the regular civil servants. there is a very big gulf between them. and big difference in salary is just one of the many aspects of this particularly wide gulf.

robertteh SG

[reply to a posting in youngpap.org.sg on 1.2.2007]

People have been conned by the elites in their making of salary comparison with the private sector. Their comparison has been selective to give a lop-sided picture so as to enable them to claim for higher salaries and rewards. There is no apple-to-apple comparison at all.

Because of such self-rewards by the elites coupled with the general lack of accountability and transparency in their top-down system of government, it is the citizens who finally end up suffering from all kinds of higher fees and charges which are regularly adjusted upwards to pay for these highers salaries and bonuses to the elites in the government, GLCs GST, higher HDB flat prices, higher utilities, etc.

That is why we end up with NKF CEO and many blue-eye boys in GLCs paying themselves with connivance of their board multi-million salaries and bonuses to no end.

Our leaders were seen openly supporting these CEOs' self-rewards calling them peanuts as seen in the aftermath of NKF bomb-shell disclosures of extragavant self-reward malpractices.

Examples include HDB staff who were paid S$8,000.00 - S$15,000.00 pm almost three times the private sector building managers (paid S$3,000.00 - S$5,000.00 pm who have more skills and who make more decisions and take more risks as compared with HDB multi-tier staff who are doing mundane works.

More examples are teachers who are paid S$8,000.00 pm as compared with adjunct teachers teaching alongside them with better results and creativity who are paid pittance of only S$100 per day.

These elites make selective artful comparisons to push for their own salary increases and promotion. They cleverly avoided making comparison who others who are paid lower salaries in private sector and governing bigger countries with greater responsibilities whereas our ministers are only concerned with mere taxing and cost-recovery.

For example, where some CEOs are paid higher, it is because these ceos were entrepreneur investors who have invested their own monies in the business and shareholders approve their higher salaries because of proven performance or invention of a certain successful products which create jobs for Singaporeans. But once their companies are not performing they will lower their own salaries or suffer losses.

In the case of government and civil servants, they do not invest their own moneis in the business. They just collect fees and taxes and use them to spend on whatever they need and even stinge on spending them to provide needed services and instead only accumulate them like NKF as surpluses to claim success so that they could pay their own higher salaries and bonuses and even retirement benefits by the millions.

The same malpractices are being carried on in the GLCs where ex-civil servants were seconded and given high-sounding positions like CEOs and paid multi-million salaries copied from highest paying jobs in the private sector.

Is there an apple-to-apple comparison in copying private-sector salaries of entrepreneur investors into the ceos of GLCs funded by public taxes and fees?

robertteh SG

normalsing wrote:
Hi Robert,

I had already given you examples of pays of CEOs in Singtel and SIA. If what you said is true, then are you saying that the two CEOs are overpaid? In that case, how can you say that when they are paid lower than CEO of corresponding organisation in other countries?

There may be instances where CEOs in GLCs and ministers in government deserve higher pays.

If we have a technology start-up minister or finance minister who are in possession of the extra strategic implementation abilities of the equivalent of Dr. Goh Keng Swee or Mr. Lim Kim San, we should be flexible and grant these two higher salaries than say the CEOs in the private sector. When it comes to these two cases, or for that matter say MM Lee Kuan Yew himself, we could have an independent panel to review and assess their worth with the participation from eminent assessors from the private or international sector to avoid bias or malpractices seen in NKF.

But the trouble is : our ministers prefer to generalise across the board and make artful nonsensical comparison of their own salary (ability) levels with the private sector CEOs where many of them are in the entrepreneur investor categories which is not a apple-to-apple comparison.

Today many ordinary bureaucrats in the public sector are overpaid with their salaries being pushed up by such artful comparison.

Without being tested against the entrepreneur investor's efficiency and productivity they receive windfall salary jumps from S$3,000.00 pm to S$8,000.00-S$15,000.00 pm not to mention the several-month bonuses sanctioned by NWC.

This is how NKF durai's salary was perhaps being pushed to S$600,000.00 per annum based on pure copying the same self-reward scheme from the public sector.

SnowFlag SG

I have no good words to say about them. Rolling Eyes

(human) SG

He who cannot describe the problem will never find the solution to that problem- confucius

Robertteh is very right..

eyebuzz SG

Is it why brown was 'dehumournised'?! Laughing

countdracula SG

it’s a case of monkey see, monkey does….how do we squarely pin the blame on recent episodes of excesses by durai and lam when our highest offices are creating a culture of greed…..it is one thing to earn from a free market and quite another from taxpayers….our leaders need to be asking if they require more money rather than casting envious eyes at the ‘benchmarks’......

Tiggerific SG

Our politicians take a lot of money home every month... and give regular civil servants, paid paltry sums each month, a bad name.

And Politicians are soooooo NOT civil servants. It's time they stopped being thought of as such.

Arapahoe SG

Hi

I always believe there is a fundamental flaw in mixing up public sector salaries to private enterprise.

Because - The nature of the 2 have different goals and perspective.
and Because - crowding out effect between the 2 sector in a small country.

We know that there exist crowding out effect for the private sector, but because singapore is too small and too many variable involved to proof it exist.

I was thinking if we take the entry level jobs real salary scale between public sector and private sector taking inflation into account. And see what is the different compare to 10 years ago. It might show the impact of pay scale due to the changes in the Singapore economy.

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