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By Bernice Han
Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong’s offer to freeze his salary for five years is an attempt to
appease rare public fury over plans to boost the salaries of
ministers and civil servants, analysts said Thursday.
The Singapore leader told
parliament on Wednesday he would forego the salary hike which would
give him an annual income of more than US$2 million a year, up from
the $1.62 million he made last year.
He would donate the difference to
“suitable good causes,” he said.
“It looks like an indicator
that he is trying to calm the public,” said Sinapan Sa-mydorai,
president of the Think Center human-rights group.
“After all this noise, then you
announce it—people will still be skeptical even though his
intention may be good,” he told AFP.
The prime minister’s press
secretary said Lee’s decision to freeze his salary was not a
response to opposition to the salary hike.
“The fact is it was a decision
taken up front even before the announcements of pay revision,”
Chen Hwai Liang told AFP.
Lee’s salary hike was part of a
pay increase for cabinet ministers and civil servants announced on
Monday.
His revised salary would be five
times more than the $400,000 paid to US President George W. Bush and
more than eight times that of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
who receives $240,000 a year.
The pay increases provoked a rare
outcry from normally reserved Singaporeans.
In a country where political
rallies are banned without a permit and the media are closely linked
with the government, many of the comments against the pay rise were
posted on the Internet, where people can use pseudonyms.
“What a hypocrite our PM Lee
is,” said Annie, who was among a growing list of people to sign an
online petition against the increments. More than 1,800 had signed
by Thursday.
“One moment he wants to level
up his and his ministers’ pay, next moment he tries to be a good
and caring person by donating his increment to charity for the next
five years,” Annie said.
Ministers’ salaries are to be
raised incrementally from $1.2 million to $1.9 million by the end of
2008.
“Him freezing his pay should be
seen more as a gesture to control the damage,” said Terence Chong,
a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
“He is trying to seize the
moral high ground and also to deflect criticism that ministers lack
the desire” to perform public service, he told AFP.
The move to increase ministerial
pay comes amid a widening income gap and ahead of a hike in the
goods and services tax by two percentage points to seven percent
beginning in July.
“The reason why there is such
dissatisfaction is because the hike has come at a strange time when
the salaries of the average Singaporean seem to be stagnating and in
some parts taking a dip,” said Chong.
Lee and senior ruling party
leaders said high salaries, pegged to the pay of senior private
sector employees, were necessary to attract the best people to
government and prevent corruption.
Opposition politician Chee Soon
Juan, of the Singapore Democratic Party, disagreed.
“It must never be forgotten
that parliaments are institutions of service, not avarice,” Chee
said on his party’s website.
“The pay hike was a colossal
misstep on the part of the government . . . The PM is obviously now
trying to undo, or at least limit, the damage.”
A former MP, who did not want to
be named, said ministers should follow Lee’s lead to show they
were serious about the bread-and-butter issues facing Singaporeans.
“I think not only the PM, but
the whole cabinet, should do that to gain moral authority,” he
said.
--AFP
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