Why are the salaries of public servants not made more public? That must be the question on every body's mind when Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, concurrently the the Minister in charge of the Civil Service, sailed forth on the latest revelations about how the top dogs in the civil service are compensated for their sacrifices.
Teo would only divulge that the pension system is about to be replaced with a long-term retention package effective July 1. And all the while we thought the Ministerial Salary Review Committee (MSRC) headed by Gerard Ee in 2012 had already done away with this boondoggle. The Attorney-General, Auditor-General and the chairman of the Public Service Commission even have a special deal, something called a "gratuity plan". This is not to be confused with the alleged gratification derived by certain top civil servants in SCDF and CNB in parked automobiles. The water gets murkier when Teo said the retention and gratuity plan are "in line with talent retention practices in the private sector and parts of the public sector". Is he referring to sign-on bonuses and golden parachutes? Without detailed inputs, one's imagination can only run wild.
We also get to know that although the MSRC had done away with the GDP bonus in the 2012 recommendations, members of the "elite Administrative Service" were still enjoying the perk. It suddenly makes sense why the statistics are adjusted each time we are supposed to be heading for a technical recession. There's money to be made from them charts.
Teo claims that "The most important motivation for a person to stay in the public service is that he gets happiness out of other people's happiness". He must be referring to Goh Chok Tong's thesis of "net happiness", as there must be lots of unhappy people out there when they find out how the pockets are lined.
One last question from a curious mind: When Yam Ah Mee retired again (he first retired as Brigadier-General to join the Civil Service in 1998) to be the Managing Director of Sembcorp Design and Construction on April 16, is he entitled to full pension from the Civil Service? What do you think?
Teo would only divulge that the pension system is about to be replaced with a long-term retention package effective July 1. And all the while we thought the Ministerial Salary Review Committee (MSRC) headed by Gerard Ee in 2012 had already done away with this boondoggle. The Attorney-General, Auditor-General and the chairman of the Public Service Commission even have a special deal, something called a "gratuity plan". This is not to be confused with the alleged gratification derived by certain top civil servants in SCDF and CNB in parked automobiles. The water gets murkier when Teo said the retention and gratuity plan are "in line with talent retention practices in the private sector and parts of the public sector". Is he referring to sign-on bonuses and golden parachutes? Without detailed inputs, one's imagination can only run wild.
We also get to know that although the MSRC had done away with the GDP bonus in the 2012 recommendations, members of the "elite Administrative Service" were still enjoying the perk. It suddenly makes sense why the statistics are adjusted each time we are supposed to be heading for a technical recession. There's money to be made from them charts.
Teo claims that "The most important motivation for a person to stay in the public service is that he gets happiness out of other people's happiness". He must be referring to Goh Chok Tong's thesis of "net happiness", as there must be lots of unhappy people out there when they find out how the pockets are lined.
One last question from a curious mind: When Yam Ah Mee retired again (he first retired as Brigadier-General to join the Civil Service in 1998) to be the Managing Director of Sembcorp Design and Construction on April 16, is he entitled to full pension from the Civil Service? What do you think?