Netizen’s thoughts on how salaries of Ministers in Singapore are calculated

SINGAPORE — When a local Redditor asked for “Thoughts on salaries of Ministers in Singapore” in a Jan 15 (Sunday) r/askSingapore post, many commenters chimed in.

PSD says that a minister may receive a starting monthly salary of S$46,750, which “works out to an annual salary of S$935,000, of which the fixed component is S$607,750 and the rest is variable,” the Redditor added. According to the Public Service Division website, as of this year, a minister’s monthly salary is S$55,000. Their total salary is S$1.1 million per year.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, receives “a total annual salary package that is twice the benchmark level of an MR4 minister, or S$2.2 million,” EffectiveAsk9740 wrote, and the President, who “receives the same monthly salary as the Prime Minister, including the 13th month, as well as the annual variable component but without the performance and national bonuses,” receives an annual salary or “S$1.54 million.”

Reddit user EffectiveAsk9740 added that “The benchmark for an entry-level minister, pegged at grade MR4, is based on the median income of the top 1,000 Singaporean income earners, with a 40 per cent discount applied ‘to reflect the ethos of the public service’, according to the Public Service Division (PSD).”

By Monday, the post garnered over 200 comments, some of which were humorous.

“Can we instead give them some store credits which they can use at NTUC? Like how they “reward” the NS men,” wrote one Reddit user.

“The true reason is to avoid corruption,” wrote another. “Paying a high salary reduces the incentive for corruption.”

This was echoed by others on the thread.

Another Reddit user brought up the salaries of mayors, however.

“Really envy the salaries of course. But no, I don’t envy their job — such heavy responsibility and stress too. Spending your entire life serving others who don’t hesitate to criticise you, sometimes with cause but usually without,” one Redditor wrote.

Another agreed to this, saying, “I mean they do have a lot of stress, especially in Covid times. Would NOT WANT TO BE THEMMMMMM.”

Progress Singapore Party Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Hazel Poa recently asked whether the Prime Minister has already appointed a committee to carry out the five-yearly review of political salaries. The last time such a committee was appointed was in 2017.

In his reply on Jan 10, Mr Chan Chun Sing, the Minister-in-charge of the Public Service, said that the next political salaries review is targeted for this year, 2023 and that more details will be shared in due course.  /TISG

PSP’s Hazel Poa asks if committee has been appointed to review political salaries, and if not, when and what’s the expected terms of reference