The following is a letter by one of our readers, Sunny Tan.
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How much salary should the CEO of any charity in Singapore get per year? Work for a charity should be a vocation and not a career.
For me, I had worked for no money whatsoever as a volunteer teacher of journalism in Indochina because I believe and love my work. I fund my daily expenses with the money from my winning bets from SGX.
In connection with this, allow me to draw your attention to the pay of the CEO of SIAS (Securities Investors Association (Singapore)). This is a Singapore icon and a charity. From the financial statement of the annual report of this body, 2014/15, drafted by its auditor, RSM Cho, the CEO was paid (p.15):
2015 – $276,148
2014 – $233,661
The income of SIAS from “sponsorship” was $840,689 in 2015 and $1,019,152 in 2014.
Owing to the lack of information in this report on who the sponsors were, I infer they are the blue chips of SGX.
Keppel Corp, Sembawang Corp and Singtel give $100,000 each per year to SIAS. Capitaland pony up $150, 000 every year. A few more blue chips also give money but they are so quiet about it that I am not able to know who they are. Two blue chips ceased to give its annual donation and for reasons that they know best.
Therefore, for 2015, 33 per cent of all the money given by the blue chips went into the deep pocket of the CEO of SIAS. Surely, this is an overkill.
I write to ask these donating companies to funnel the money as dividends to all its shareholders.
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Readers may send in your letters to writers@theindependent.sg.
