One enduring and sensitive issue in public discussions about governance, meritocracy and the attracting of talent is the justification for the high salaries of political office-holders and senior civil servants, and the mechanism that links their pay to market salaries for private-sector professionals.
Whenever the government reiterates that high pay is necessary “to attract top talent and prevent a loss of talent”, new waves of introspection and questions are stirred up. This underlying tension deserves close examination, for it goes to the very heart of governance.
We cannot simply attribute this to the public’s envy of high salaries or their ignorance of the complexities of administration. Viewed through the lens of political philosophy and the social contract, it instead reflects a fundamental public question about the qualities that should define those who govern.
The longstanding rationale for linking the salaries of ministers and senior officials to those of top private-sector executives or professionals is this: without competitive pay, the government cannot recruit the best talent, potentially undermining administrative effectiveness or even encouraging corruption.
Yet in today’s society, people are beginning to question who we are recruiting when officials’ salaries are tied to the commercial market. Are they public-spirited individuals willing to shoulder heavy responsibilities for the nation, or calculating “senior professional managers” who regard politics as a lucrative career?
This tendency to subject public service to market logic is quietly eroding the moral legitimacy at the core of Singapore’s meritocracy.
Governing a country is fundamentally different from running a business. Businesspeople seek to maximise profits, secure returns on capital and avoid risk.
National leaders and truly outstanding public servants, by contrast, must be driven by altruism, a sense of responsibility to history and compassion that transcend material interests. They must put people’s well-being and the nation’s long-term future ahead of personal gains and losses.
If someone considering a ministerial appointment first asks, “How much could I earn outside the government? Would I lose out here? Are the benefits comparable?”, or even publicly complains that they would not sacrifice their personal time to serve the public unless the salary were high enough, that in itself shows they lack the highest qualities of character needed to shoulder such responsibility.
Truly great statesmen and public servants have never placed the greatest value on salaries benchmarked against the private sector. What matters to them is the irreplaceable sense of historical achievement and purpose that comes from seeing their country prosper and its people live and work in peace and contentment.
Furthermore, a look around the world exposes the flaws in the argument that good leaders can be found only by matching market salaries. If being paid as well as private-sector executives were an absolute prerequisite for outstanding political leadership, consider the world’s major developed countries — the US, the UK, Germany and Japan. Their political leaders’ salaries often pale beside those of their countries’ top business leaders, finance titans or partners at leading law firms.
Does this mean that successive governments and political leaders in these countries have all been less capable than Singapore’s officials, or that their systems of governance must inevitably collapse? Clearly not.
This thoroughly demonstrates that what drives truly outstanding political leaders is not the lure of money, but a deep attachment to their country, a far-reaching strategic vision and a profound sense of responsibility towards the people.
Placing excessive faith in the myth that “high market salaries deliver good governance” not only underestimates the human pursuit of higher causes, but also narrows the country’s approach to selecting capable leaders.
Singapore must therefore undertake an extensive re-examination of public service ethics and its system for selecting leaders, then correct its course.
First, it must break with the dogmatic belief that civil servants’ salaries should be mechanically benchmarked against the highest private-sector market rates.
Fair pay is certainly necessary to provide a basic standard of living and prevent corruption. But “high salaries” cannot be equated with “a match for the astronomical remuneration of multinational chief executives”.
The government should recalibrate the benchmarks for political office-holders’ pay, linking it more closely to growth in the median income of Singaporeans and their broader well-being over the course of the country’s long-term development. Officials’ salaries should not be allowed to soar in a parallel universe detached from the people’s everyday lives.
Second, the ability to inspire through conviction, along with moral courage, must once again carry the greatest weight in selection and promotion. When assessing and selecting future leaders, we must look beyond academic results, administrative efficiency and business acumen to scrutinise their empathy, willingness to make sacrifices and genuine concern for ordinary people.
A good official must be willing to visit elderly people living alone in HDB flats late at night, and able to withstand public pressure in the face of controversy for the country’s long-term interests. They must not simply hide behind impersonal key performance indicators (KPIs) to evade responsibility whenever problems arise.
We need inspiring leaders who keep the people in their hearts and shoulder responsibility for the nation, not politicians who treat public administration as a stepping stone.
Finally, Singapore’s success was never bought with multimillion-dollar salaries. It was forged by the founding generation’s wholehearted devotion to this island as their home, a cause to which they were prepared to commit their lives, inspiring the entire nation to strive together.
To apply the logic of market transactions to everything is not only to underestimate the character of Singaporeans, but also to diminish the noble mission of public service. Only by demonstrating integrity that transcends personal interests can those who govern rekindle cohesion and unity across our society.
Singapore stands at a crossroads as it enters its next phase of development. Faced with complex challenges at home and abroad, the last thing we need is highly paid officials preoccupied with calculating personal gains and losses.
Instead, what we need most are true leaders with far-reaching visions and a deep love for this land. Only by decisively breaking with the myth of excessively market-driven pay, establishing a rigorous system centred on political KPIs and returning to the noble founding purpose of public service can we ensure that meritocracy wins public support and continues to navigate the challenges of time.
(The writer is a retired finance manager.)