Disclaimer: In no way is this a news report on the situation in Singapore. I firmly believe that my government has done a good job at running the country and I would not be able to do a better job. This merely is MY response to the events around the ministers pay cuts. In no way am I authorized to comment officially on local events like these. DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ!
Dear World,
This has been a pretty debated topic… well actually it is not really debated. A better way to describe the situation would be Singaporeans venting their frustrations about Ministers reactions to their pay cuts. Me and my friends have been discussing the issue and been following this pretty closely.
Singapore Ministers are one of the more highly paid group of ministers around the globe. By my understanding, some are even paid higher than President Barack Obama ( and to me, that actually says something).
There are several issues going around. Firstly, one of the ministers put a comment a Facebook saying that the cuts were unfair which of course, resulted in this up-roar that is dominating twitter and Facebook (since we can’t protest in the streets by law, we used the internet). To add fuel to the fire, after Singaporeans ‘asked’ for ministers pays to be cut further (yup, that’s how high their salary is) Deputy Premier said that further cuts would deter people from entering local politics.
That’s the context! Here is what I think.
Why in the world are Ministers getting paid so much! Yes, yes, running a country is difficult and all but I believe that state money ( which is what majority of their salaries are anyways) should be funded into the state, be it education, transport, rebuilding and further developing our economy. I honestly believe that our ministers have more than enough to meet their basic needs (food, housing, utilities, etc.) and save for retirement or their kids’ education or for health purposes with the cuts and if we were to cut more, they would still be pretty ok. I am not asking them to give us everything. I’m asking them “Think about how you work?” and if they give the answer of someone higher in parliament, they are so wrong. We have the power to vote them out, especially if we believe that they aren’t putting national funds to good use. All I’m saying is that I’m pretty sure 5 million people would benefit from their pay cuts.
And here’s the next part to this – how the government thinks with lower salaries for politicians, Singaporean youth will not be interested in joining politics. I have two issues with this. Firstly, trust me, no youth I know wants to join politics and even if I knew someone, they would do it to make a change, or make a difference, or do something significant. Something along those cliche lines. I like to believe my generation is driven by much more than money. It is superficial to believe otherwise. It is also superficial to say that people are motivated by money to enter politics. And that leads to my second point about the issue. By saying that people arent motivated into politics without the money, you are basically implying that our system is, in some small extent, corrupt. I do not really want money minded politicians running the country I live in and if that is the only reason why people are involved in politics… well then yeah, it isn’t a good message- to anyone. And I don’t think it is that would be a good reason to enter anything. Something about that issue feels so immoral and wrong that it needs to be brought up; may be it was the way the issue was approached. And we are better than that.
I think that’s why people are upset about this. It reflects poorly on our government and hence it represents poorly on our people.
Sorry guys in parliament. You guys don’t get it, because no one has really written it down. Hope this helps understanding some of the people’s concerns. I’m not saying you guys are doing a bad job. I’m just saying, we have an image to maintain and other areas of the country to see to. Don’t let us down.
Cheyenne
sources:
http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/ministerial-pay-cut-fair-singapore-deputy-pm_753093.html
