Singapore politicians get pay cut but keep millionaire salaries

Singapore will cut its politicians’ pay by up to 51 percent amid mounting public concern over inequalities and rising consumer costs in the city state.

However, even with the cut, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will remain the world's highest paid elected leader, earning $1.7 million a year — four times more than President Barack Obama — ABC News reported.

The pay cut proposal, recommended by a committee appointed after the 2011 election, "will reduce ministerial salaries and award bonuses that are dependent on the country’s socioeconomic targets being met," according to the Financial Times.

The ministers’ high pay was an election issue driven by the opposition.

“This is a complex and politically difficult issue with major implications for the future of Singapore,” Lee reportedly wrote in a letter to the committee earlier this week.

However, the FT wrote:

Singapore’s generous pay for ministers is often cited as a reason why the country is relatively efficient and free of corruption. The new pay scheme is designed to link politicians’ pay to the welfare of average Singaporeans while remaining competitive with the private sector for talent, the committee said in its report.

ABC cited the committee as saying that politicians' salaries still needed to match those in the private sector in order to attract the best candidates for public service.

“Salaries must be competitive so that people of the right caliber are not deterred from stepping forward to lead the country. Political service ethos entails making sacrifices and hence there should be a discount in the pay formula,” the committee said.

Where salaries were benchmarked against the wages of the top 48 earners, the salary of an entry-level minister will now be set by looking at the median earnings of the top 1000 Singapore citizens, less 40 per cent.