Everything Also Complain

From ‘Tan Jee Say: $500k presidential salary is ‘plenty”, 21 Aug 2011, article by Tessa Wong, ST online

Presidential candidate Mr Tan Jee Say is promising to take a salary of $500,000 if elected, saying it is “plenty” and far more needed for a family to live on.

Supporters distributed flyers advertising this campaign promise at a walkabout at the Hari Raya bazaar at Geylang Serai on Saturday evening.

The flyer states, among other things, the lines: “Presidential salary: $500,000 a year is plenty for anyone to live on. Anything else should go back to the people of Singapore.”

Asked if it was meant to counter Mr Tan Kin Lian’s campaign promise to take half of the president’s salary, which is currently about $4 million, Mr Tan Jee Say said: “No it’s not undercutting. People ask me what is a good figure to live on so I think this is a good, it’s a lot of money to live on.”

Asked how he decided on this figure, Mr Tan said: “Well I think it’s generally far above what an average family needs.”

He will drop his pay in a heartbeat

To each his own ‘privy purse’ really, but it’s interesting how one’s monetary worth is mooted as a carrot during these presidential elections. Since a president can’t issue bonus handouts to get buy-in from the electorate, one has to play the sacrificial card in addition to selling his qualifications. The question then, is whether a president is allowed to determine his own salary, or accept the bare minimum and ‘distribute’ it to the people, which sounds as easy as a king throwing bags of coins off his royal balcony to his minions below. Tan Jee Say admitted that he isn’t ‘Superman’ when questioned about his failure to control his rowdy anti-Tony Tan camp during Nomination Day, but it’s suggested here that he may think he’s Robin Hood instead.

The truth is the Istana is allocated a budget every fiscal year in accordance to the Civil List and Pension Act as decided by the ministry, which means the only way for our future president to ‘give back’ to Singaporeans would be to use his personal and entertainment expenses to throw more Istana parties with free food and drink, or donate to charitable causes. Here’s a history of presidential pay since the passing of our first president Yusof Bin Ishak, nicely worded as the ‘Privy Purse’, a monarchic term which is still used in place of ‘President’s salary’ in the civil list till this very day. It has the ring of the proverbial ‘cookie jar’ to it when it’s just a euphemism for ‘bank account’ or if you want to push it further, the amount that goes into his POCKETS every year.

1970: 48k/year (Yusof Ishak/Benjamin Sheares)

1975: 12k/month i.e 144k/year  (Benjamin Sheares)

1980: 301,400/year (Benjamin Sheares)

1984: 407, 000/year (Devan Nair)

1988: $424, 300/year (Wee Kim Wee)

1995: $1.34 million/year (Ong Teng Cheong) (Privy purse to be raised to $1.34m, 2 March 1995, ST)

2007: $2.5 million/year (SR Nathan)

2011: $4.27 million/year (SR Nathan)

Which means SR Nathan earns more in a year now than what Benjamin Sheares accumulated in his 10 years as president, making our current sovereign the longest serving, and hence richest,  Head of State ever. The 2011 privy purse is also more than 3 million in excess of Tan Jee Say’s expected salary (which is also at least half the salary of a minister), an amount which can feed several hungry households for weeks. As a self-professed money maestro, I would expect Jee Say to be explicit in how exactly ‘anything else will go back to the people of Singapore’ because a more than 80% pay cut is extremely unlikely, not to mention the same amount being translated into money in our own ‘privy purses’. True to his logo, he should put his money where his mouth, and HEART,  is.

Filed under: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2011, Campaigns/Elections, Justice system/Lawsuits, Money, Politicians Tagged: | Campaigns/Elections, justice system, Money, tan see say