The MP is currently being paid $12,000.00 pm for doing a
part-time job which he needs not have to perform but our MPs are
being described as great talents and people with all kinds of
ability beyond human or performance-rated proportion.
He can still keep his normal job without resigning when he is
elected as a MP.
As part-time salary or allowance of $12,000.00 pm is simply too
high to pay the MPs. Don't forget we the taxpayers still have to
pay the MPs for life at about $8,000.00 pm after two terms.
In the case of an opposition MP, he has to do more works to produce
checks and balances on the government. A backbencher MP does not
have too much to worry as his works are preempted and covered by
the autocratic leaders who except them not to ask too much
questions.
An opposition MP is also under the risk of being sued for
defamation and targeting by the party in power.
Opposition MPs would deserve to be paid more than the backbencchers
who hardly attend meetings or raise questions in parliaments.
More likely since our MM Lee and PM Lee are so sure about their
leadership and convinced of the righteuousness of their policies,
backbencher MPs do not really have to query their leaders. All they
need to do is to be able to speak in favour of their leaders'
policies and be supportive.
MPs' job scopes consist of attending meet the people sessions about
four times per month, Parliament once or twice per quarter, and
some walkabouts.
If we divide $12,000.00 into say 6 attendances, MP is being paid
$2,000.00 for each attendance. Where in the world can one receive
$12,000 pm for a part-time sinecure job as our MPs many of whom
only become active to appear on TV during the election time.
True, an MP needs to do some researches of problems and issues but
how many of them really have done great works from their so-called
researches. I think some forumers have done more than our MPs in
bringing up real issues facing their constituents.
It is not worth paying $12,000.00 pm to our MPs (except opposition
MPs) to carry out a part-time job which they need not perform in
many cases except to be yesmen. I think to be realistic, we should
pay our MP about $500.00 per attendance oe $3,000.00 per month with
savings going to an endowment fund to help lower the costs of
living currently faced by all citizens.
If certain leader or ministers have proven their worth such as
having succeeded in turning around the economy during 1997-99 or
2000-2002, with upgrading to a value-adding model, we should pay
such ministers $1,000,000.00 pa but this should not be taken as
precedent to pay all the rest of ministers who have experienced
highway collapses or high medical or housing costs.
Do not forget that beside the minister's salaries, tax payers still
have to pay them to the tune of $750,000.00 pa for the rest of his
life after two terms.
Those who have not yet proven results like Dr. Goh Keng Swee has
should not be paid automatically $1,000,000.00 pa. If we really
must bribe our ministers so as to prevent bribery, then this is not
the kind of Minister we want. We only need to pay them sufficiently
high to be worth of trouble to leave his job to serve the nation.
If in the private sector someone has made 10 times our minister's
salaries, let it be so our ministers are not risking their own
capital or life saving like Bill Gate or Li Ka Shing and cannot be
compared with such corporate bosses in the private sector as
recommended by MM Lee.
His comparison is not apple-to-apple and cannot stand closer
scrutiny.
All our Ministers have are paid million-dollar salaries should be
regularly made to defend his performance based on acceptable
objective yardstick and not by intuitions of the MM or PM alone.
Ministers who have created NKF or repeated high costs or highway
collapses are not talents and should be told plainly they have not
performed by someone else as PM will probably find it hard to tell
them so.
To create a more accountable and competitive government, our
leaders should start changing their assumption that all their
chosen men or women are talents. If they are, they must be
independent and objective measurement yardstick, justification
based on "I say what I like" rhetorics or presentation.
