What some Singaporeans might think about the minister pay and raiding the reserves issues :)
Or at least that is what they are promising!
Actually, a very good move to score points by the PM. Very smart. Nicole Seah better watch out as PM is also learning very fast to be like her to pull political stunts one after another. Just last week it was news of 2 retired but yet not really tired ministers who are paid millions, who are retiring. Confusing, especially when one of them changed his appointment from SM to ESM!!! Whatever lah. (Shake head) In the end still paid millions! Or maybe not millions because now there is a committee to Potong Minister Salary. PMS. PAP ministers sure feel PMS when they heard PM make his announcement on Saturday night. PMS like before when the PM spoil market and pledged to donate his increase in salary to charity for 5 years from 2007.
But seriously, slick move by PAP to make Singaporeans happy for now. They didn't need to make this show now, they could have done it 2 or 3 or 4 years later before the next GE and pocket the money in the meantime. But they didn't.
Also, let's face it and don't kid ourselves. How much they cut their pay also we think not enough, and it can never be enough. Life is like that as some want to think that politicians must be like Mother Theresa, poor and passionate about serving the people. What is "poor" is subjective and maybe the PMS committee would refer to WP's previous suggestion on pegging minister pay to the lower salaries in Singapore and given a bonus compared to the current model where it paces the higher salaries and given a discount! On WP, MP pay also might be cut to keep abreast with the idea of lowering the pay of politicians. So the 6 WP MP might now feel very PMS too - just when they join parliament, the PM gave such a commitment.
On whether ministers deserve a high pay where one person's "high" is another person's "peanuts"? If they meet our demands for better cheaper faster health, housing, transport services, why not? Let's not be cheapskate about this. But. But since they cannot meet our aspirations and they want to behave like CEOs in collecting big salary, then they should get pay cut or fired like COEs who under-perform when they show poor leadership in leading a big company. Only fair. Corporate world pay, corporate world rules.