Ministerial Pay - Case of tradeoff

There is quite a debate recently on how high ministers' pay should be. Should it be marked up to the level of the top pays of the private sector, or should it much lower?

I think this is a trade off problem, where the solution varies from country to country, situation to situation. Hence you cant take any solution from any country and apply it here.

The strongest argument against high pay for ministers is perhaps the associated lower risks for public sector compared to the private sector. The mental image of a golden alloy rice bowl comes into the mind. Obviously, this applies to some low profile secretary working somewhere with a stable job. And while that rice bowl is iron-like, its certainly not made of gold. For ministers, if you are incompetent, you are fired, after 5 years. Its not any better than other private sector CEOs.

Think of it this way. High pay for ministers is in someway justified because you are investing money for the country's future. But you are not investing in something that results in sunk costs. If that is a piece of wreck, you pull out your money from him, and kick him out.

Now Singapore has quite a unique political scene. Circumstances is such that the private sector looks a lot more attractive than public sector. Mighty think tanks is not exactly built into Singaporeans. Why should we? After all we got a great government that does all the thinking for us.

I think Mr Lee is quite right. We need to look at things in perspective. For the sake of less than 1% of the country's GDP, we are prepared to forsake the possible return of the entire country's economic value. Is that rational? For myself, and the rest the teenagers, I think the thing that we care about before considering going into the public sector would be 'What is the pay?' If I can do better by being a banker or being a doctor, why should I be in the public sector?