Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Flogging A Dead Horse

Lee Hsien Loong can be so dense. Of all the unhappiness Singaporeans are so worked up over, none is worse than the demand for private sector pay without the private sector accountability. Even Steve Jobs was fired by the board when disappointing sales caused Apple shares to slide.

License to fail, and still get rich
 Instead of sacking his epic fails, Lee would "move them to less demanding portfolios". Which explains why Vivian Balakrishnan is now "jaga longkang" (Malay for "custodian of drains"), but still drawing $1.1 millions after the "pay cut". The electorate is not so forgiving - witness the punishment dished out at the polls for Wong Kan Seng, Mah Bow Tan and Raymond Lim. More would have had their heads at the guillotine if not for the protective shield of the GRC.

Lee said Workers' Party MP Chen Show Mao entered politics at age 50, after a successful career as a lawyer, "Now he is ready to do public service". Lee himself became prime minister at 52, at a substantially higher salary than entry level MP allowance. No wonder Teo Chee Hean's quote made the headlines yesterday, "Passion alone not enough to run country". For some people.

Heng Swee Keat was held up as a sterling example of a private sector find who "took a substantial cut" in salary to enter politics. Heng was a Permanent Secretary (superscaled civil servant) before made managing director of Monetary Authority of Singapore (government appointee). That's as "private sector" as they can get. And Heng was made Minister so fast, you will never guess he was sneaked in on the Tampines GRC ticket in 2011. Even Lee himself had to serve time as minister of state before handed all the perks of ministerhood, personal security officers, Gurkha guard post, official car, etc, etc. The Workers' Party is asking that the total pay of political leaders should be published annually. Better still, let's see how big a sacrificial pay cut was taken by Heng. Before and after Lee defers his bonus for 40 years.

If John F Kennedy had campaigned under the PAP ticket, he would have said:
"My fellow Singaporeans: ask not what your ministers can do for you -ask what you can afford to pay your ministers."
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14 comments:

  1. Poor Singaporean1/18/2012 10:48 AM

    hahaha...I like your last paragraph.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1/18/2012 1:01 PM

    Listening to the black white talk really makes my blood boil but reading your bog makes my day ! Thanks for not mincing your words. Bravo !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1/18/2012 1:09 PM

    How about a play on a famous speech by Winston Churchill?

    "Never has so much, been given to so few, by so many."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1/18/2012 3:02 PM

    One word : Disappointed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous1/18/2012 3:06 PM

    So from pegging to top 6 professions to Top 1000 they deem it a sacrifice?
    Why don't they peg to the Bottom 1000 and I'll be happy to throw in the Airforce One and Camp Lee into the lot as perks for him instead!!

    What a load of BS. Utterly and morally bankrupt.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1/18/2012 4:17 PM

    How about this one from General "keechiu" Patton?

    "No political leader ever governed a country by sacrificing his paycheck, he governs a country by making the poor dumb lesser mortals sacrifice their paychecks."

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1/18/2012 5:05 PM

    The words political and moral bankruptcy does come to mind.

    ReplyDelete
  8. RH1/18/2012 6:35 PM

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    Harry
    harry.roger10@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ng Eng Hou1/18/2012 8:21 PM

    Politicians have power over the whole country on a lot of lives. Businessmen only have power over their own companies. Apples and oranges, how to compare? What people lose in the private sector, they get back some thing in terms of power and prestige after entering politics. You get some, you lose some. Really hard to have the best of both worlds. This kind of complaining over how much they sacrifice after entering politics is real sickening, considering that a lot of Singaporeans now are not doing well,losing jobs, suffering drastic cuts.

    Maybe Voters Should End Their 'Sacrifice' & Vote In Those Non-Calculative Ones To Serve The Country!

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  10. Anonymous1/18/2012 11:38 PM

    It's unbelievable that these idiots have wasted precious parliament meeting discussing about pay cuts which would only affect ... at most... 81 persons' lives.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous1/18/2012 11:39 PM

    Shouldn't they be discussing how to help those down troddens and improving the lives of poorer citizens? Talk about self- serving... This is the epitome of it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Alan Wong1/19/2012 3:25 PM

    Defending their entitlement to private-sector pay levels and yet wouldn't want to approve of a minimumum wage for our poor workers.

    Are they not real hypocrites?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous1/19/2012 6:11 PM

    And Abe Lincoln said - Government of the people, by the eLEEte, for the eLEEte, shall not perish from the Red Dot.

    Saycheese

    ReplyDelete
  14. Gintai_昇泰1/21/2012 10:49 PM

    I like the last para. Really creative! Lol!

    GRC is a unique political fortress created by the PAP for "rear-entry" politicians (kiasu and Kiasee) or "dog style" politicians - cum from the rear lah! Some Ministers eg Kee Chiu etc just sneaked into parliament like that! What a shame? Where is their moral authority and mandate? Can talk big in parliament some more! Very despicable! Lost all my respect for them!

    ReplyDelete

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