A Malaysian's comment on the Salary debate

Hi friends,

The following is an extract from an article written by Tan Shao Qian pp27 in SIN CHEW JIT POH (17 APR 2007) entitled "IF THEY ARE FIRST-CLASS TALENT, ANY HARM IN PAYING THEM A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR?".

After reading the article sent by a friend to me, I asked myself, "Should I count their salaries or should I count my blessings?"

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Are you convinced by Lee Hsien Loong argument? Pay a Singapore minister or the Prime Minister an annual income you would probably never be able to save in your lifetime. The reason is to maintain a first-class team. Times that figure by two plus and the S$3 million salary becomes more than RM7 million – a shocking amount, especially for us who are a strip of water away from Singapore.

Difficult to accept? But let us look at some stories besides the remuneration: Singapore was a country in a weak position with no resources when it was separated from Malaysia in 1965. Incidentally, the ringgit-Singapore dollar exchange rate was one to two; but barely 40 years later, the situation is reverse.

The wealth of Singaporeans has doubled. Not only that, when Malaysia’s per capita income was US$5,000 in 2006, that of Singapore was US$28,000, comparable to that of the US, Europe and Japan.

However, there is more to it. They have the world’s busiest port, airport and financial hub. Just as Lee Kuan Yew has said, which country in the world has risen from Third World to First World in one generation like Singapore.

If this still does not justify the million-dollar pay rise for Singapore ministers, then let us look at it from another angle. Malaysia’s Bank Negara lost RM30 billion in foreign exchange speculation during the Asia financial crisis; the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) suffered RM3 billion in paper losses and RM500 million in bad debt in 2004 and a host of third class projects chalked up large amounts of additional costs.

In addition, national enterprises – MAS and Proton – each lost a few billion ringgit due to mismanagement. And in the ongoing Perwaja corruption suit, RM1.5 billion was lost before Eric Chia took over. Then, there was Bumiputra Finance and many other corruption cases where investigation results were not disclosed.

One disheartening fact is that such a situation is not exclusive to Malaysia. ...... (End Quote)