Good Letter from ST Forum: Pensions: Tell it exactly like it is

[steffychun]

THE reply by the Prime Minister's Office ('PMO on pensions for political office and MPs') last Saturday - which appeared together with a related report ('Pension about a tenth of minister's pay') - was in response to cyberspace speculation that ministers receive million-dollar pensions.

The Government should have been more transparent in its reply by specifically rebutting the speculation.

Statements such as '10 per cent of his annual salary'; 'pensionable component has been frozen since 1994'; and 'a minister qualifies for the maximum pension of two-thirds of this pensionable component only after having served as an office-holder for 18 years', tend to confuse ordinary Singaporeans.

All the Government needed to do was to quantify its clarification into dollars and state how much Mr George Yeo, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua and Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed will receive each month as pension.

The Government should also have stated whether all ministers aged 55 and older - and who have the minimum eight years of service - are being paid pension in addition to their salaries and, if so, how much.

In other words, the PMO's reply should have explained pensions for public office-holders and MPs in absolute dollar terms.

Now that Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Mr Goh Chok Tong are leaving the Cabinet, the pension amounts they will receive could also be made known to the public.

If the Government does not respond in a clear manner, the high figures speculated online will be taken as true by many people, casting further doubts and raising more questions on the subject.

Krishnan Harihara Kasthuri Rangan

 

[butoh6050]

Name sounds like a FT who has SEEN the light.

 

[chewed]

Name sounds like a FT who has SEEN the light.

having a indian name doesn't means this chap's FT. You mean you dunno SG have local born & bred indian brothers ah?

 

[Cestbon]

Local Indian normally dont have so long name. Maybe in an India born convert cto Singapore pink IC.

 

[williamsF1]

the problem that is lacking in the PMO is, there's no HR minister to address payroll & human resource matters. they like to use ambiguous terms to confuse the public, believing the citizens to be country bumpkins w/o brains.

is there any reason for them to be fearful of ppl's reactions, if their predecessors have inked ministerial retirement figures in parliament back in the 90s? or, is it a sign that they too disagree to the astronomincal amounts that they find it too embarrassing to disclose? or r they fearful that revelation of the exhorbitant salaries & pension schemes will result in uproar & cost them dearly for the next elections in yrs to come?

seriously, who r they trying to kid here? any kid who understands algebra can possibly table an assumption account of what the retiring ministers may be entitled to.

here's a hypothetical assumption of the pension (with reference to the 1/3 concept), against the estimated salaries:

a retiring minister who's served minimum 2 terms (10yrs) used to draw an annual income of ±SGD1.6M per annum shall be entitled to approximately SGD532K per annum (approx SGD44.4K per month w/o AWS).

whilst in the case of a maximum cap of 2/3 for ministers who've served 18yrs... shall be drawing somewhere in the range of ±SGD1.06M per annum (approx SGD88.8K per month w/o AWS).

if there's any falw in the hypothetical math as shown, they have themselves to blame for not being clear about the figures.

it's no wonder they r always seen grinning ear to ear, cos they laugh all the way to the banks.