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SINGAPORE: It has been seven years since the last review and salaries for top civil servants are set to go up.
Details will be announced in a ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday.
Delivering it will be Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, who is also Minister-in-Charge of civil service matters in the Prime Minister's Office.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave a hint of what to expect in Parliament on Monday when he spoke to top civil servants at their promotion ceremony on 22 March.
He had explained that it is critical for Singapore to keep salaries of political, judicial and statutory appointment holders competitive so that the country can bring in a continuing flow of able and successful people to be ministers and judges.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew also reiterated that point and reminded Singaporeans to have a sense of proportion.
He pointed out that the annual wage bill of S$46 million for ministers and all office holders was just 0.022 percent of the country's total economic output of S$210 billion.
Members of the Parliament acknowledged that reaction on the ground to this issue has been quite mixed.
But they added that many Singaporeans agree that the country needs to have very competent people in Cabinet and in the top echelons in the civil service.
Labour MP Halimah Yacob hopes all civil servants, including daily-rated employees, will benefit from Monday's announcements.
She said: "Frankly, when we look at this whole thing about the increase in pay we forgot that there are 66,000 civil servants and my primary concern as a unionist is how the 66,000 civil servants will benefit from this pay rise.
"Minister Teo has mentioned the need to have performance-related market adjustments. I think, in terms of principles, we don't disagree with that. But of course, at the same time, our concern is how jobs without comparable benchmarks in private sector will taken care of.
"And then the questions on performance - how are you going to assess performance when it's not just the bonus that is linked to performance but also the basic pay increase. These are issues that are of concern to the civil servants and I hope these are things that will be given particular attention to because everybody should benefit from the pay increase."
The salaries of Singapore's Ministers and administrative officers are benchmarked against the top earners in six professions.
These are bankers, lawyers, engineers, accountants, local manufacturers and employees of multi-national corporations.
The Public Service Division said these are some of the occupations that Singapore's top civil servants could have joined.
Currently, there are two benchmarks that are being used.
For the most senior Permanent Secretaries, the top eight earners in six professions are first identified.
That makes a group of 48 persons.
This group is then sorted out according to their income.
After the middle-income earner is picked out, that person's income is multiplied by two-thirds.
Based on this calculation, the private sector benchmark now stands at S$2.2 million, while that in the civil service is at S$1.21 million, which is 55 percent of the private sector salaries.
Dr Lim Wee Kiak, MP, Sembawang GRC, said: "I think it is fair enough for the government to make an adjustment back to the benchmark which was agreed and accepted by everybody in Parliament. The issue now is how to go about doing it - in one step from 55 percent to 100 percent? Or in graduated scale?
"The public will be very sensitive if there is a huge jump suddenly in ministerial pay rise or in civil service pay. So the issue now is whether they can take a graduated approach which may be more palatable for the public.
"On the other hand, we should question the government as to why adjustments are not done on an automatic basis annually since they have all the returns of the income tax. Instead of waiting a few years and doing a big adjustment, why not do a small adjustment every year similar to what PTC (Public Transport Council) does for the transport fares? That may be better for the public to accept."
The second benchmarking is for the lowest superscale grade, where officers in the early to mid-30s enter the senior ranks.
In this exercise, the top earners aged 32 in six professions are chosen.
Their incomes are then sorted out and the 15th person in the line-up is picked out.
For this group, the Public Service Division said the benchmark has climbed again.
Inderjit Singh, MP, Ang Mo Kio GRC, said: "I agree that the ministers and civil servants need to be paid what is due. I don't think we should short-change them. But no, I don't agree with the benchmarking approach. Perhaps, when we were trying to develop a certain base for the salaries for ministers and civil servants, it was necessary to find a benchmark. But today, I think we don't need this anymore. It should take a life of its own.
"We already have a base of S$1.2 million that is pegged to ministers and civil servants. The prime minister needs to determine what is it that he needs to pay to bring in such people and to retain them. If you decide on a number every five years, the voters will decide if you were right or you were wrong."
MPs added that another issue Singaporeans are concerned with is the timing of the review announcement as it came just after the debate on the GST increase from 5 to 7 percent.
And this would be another point they intend to raise during the debate in Parliament.
- CNA/so
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