Jamus Lim questions ministers’ S$1.8 million pay benchmark, says Workers’ Party’s formula comes to about S$1.08 million

SINGAPORE: In a recent social media post, Workers’ Party Member of Parliament (WP MP) Jamus Lim (Sengkang) weighed in on the increase in political salaries announced last week.

Assoc Prof Lim was absent from Parliament during last week’s debate, as he had been in Taiwan on a trip with residents, and wrote that much of the WP’s position on the matter had been raised by party chief Pritam Singh.

However, he added that “one point should be clarified, about our salary formula, and what it comes up with.”

In essence, he said that the formula used by the government to calculate salaries is fundamentally different from the one the WP uses. While the government treats ministers’ wages as reflective of high-level corporate earnings, for the WP, it is a matter of compensation for public service.

Assoc Prof Lim referred to statements made by then-Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean in 2018, who had said the WP’s calculation of a minister’s salary would be a very similar number to the salary committee’s recommendation.

However, working back using the midpoint of the MX9 pay range, he came up with a very different number for the salary of a minister at the MR4 level, which is the lowest tier.

“Now, if we were to use our formula to derive what the MR4 salary would be today, taking into account inflation between 2022 and 2025, it would come up to around S$1.08 million. This is just three-fifths of what the present salary committee had proposed for the all-in salary for the MR4. Yet during the debate, the government suggested, again, that the #workersparty formula would result in a similar amount to the new salaries,” he wrote.

However, Assoc Prof Lim clarified that the S$1.08 million figure he came up with is based on his own calculation, and acknowledged that the initial 9% increase announced by the government is pretty much in line with what the WP formula would imply today.

He ended his post with this: “Setting aside the figures, a more fundamental point is on the principle of the matter. The committee’s formula pegs ministerial salary to the top 1,000 earners, tying political pay to local corporate income. 

We believe political leadership is a public service duty. Benchmarking ministers’ pay to senior civil servants—such as the MX9—reflects a different philosophy: that political leadership is anchored to the public sector they lead.” /TISG

Read also: Pritam Singh: Workers’ Party supports increase in MP allowances, but asks for clarity on Mayors’ functions