Pay increment for Ministers

Now now now, i was really upset over this when i heard it that i actually wrote in to Class 95FM to Glenn and the Flying Dutchman. Basically, i know i am not at all clever, smart or intelligent and i do not claim to know everything but i would like to point of some of my thoughts and you can all see if they are valid.

I love my country and i trust my government, make no mistake about that. I am not some ungrateful person who fail to see how far we have come when our ministers back then gallantly fought and bravely won our freedom and dedicated their lives to build this nation but i am always reminded of Animal Farm and i do feel my country may be walking in the same direction.

Anyway my thoughts are:

I am deeply concerned for the future of my country. The government says they cannot attract top people to the cabinet and my question is how safe do you feel when your country is going to be governed by people who loves money more than the country. Money is never an evil, it is the LOVE of money that is evil.

So, we are looking at future leaders who do NOT have the real passion and love for the country but are in fact motivated by the huge money they can earn. I find it very disturbing. If anyone disagrees and says but we can also have people in who are equally attracted to the money and devoted to Singapore at the same time. Well, my retort would be if that is so, why do u need a pay increment before you serve the nation? If you truly love doing something, you would do it for the love and come on, it is not as if the Government is paying the ministers peanuts or paying them so little they have problems meeting ends meet. Its just voice down to the fact these mercenaries can make much more money in private sector. In short, the LOVE of money.

Thus, i wonder if the Singapore's economy do collapse in the future, are these "new leaders" going to "tender their resignation" and look for a "new company" to join? I can tell you there are so many opposition members who would gladly take half the salaries of the cabinet ministers to do their job (and they are qualified) simply because they love the country. They love the nation and most important they love the common people. They feel for us, they understand and they care.

My other thought was if the government says we need to increase the salaries to attract top people, okay, fine. I can accept that but why did the PM also get a pay increment? Let's be honest, aren't the current ministers and the PM already "attracted" to the job and they are already doing their job as leaders of our nation? Why do they need to give themselves such a big increment? They seem to be saying "Look, if i dun get more money, then i probably am not going to be around to help run the nation in the future. The private sector is making tons and i dun have to be constantly be in the spotlight!" Is that the message they are sending because that is sure what i am hearing. Our PM is being paid relatively 5 times more than Mr George Bush and relatively 6 times more than the PM of Japan. I would not blame people if they started to mistake Singapore to be China, for our PM to be paid that much.

As an infamous Indonesian politican once said, we are just but a tiny dot on the map. I am "sure" it needs an "extraordinary goverment" to rule that dot. hahaha. Must be hard to rule this Sunny Island because of people like me lor, who so "buay song" with everything the government do. Maybe it is me lar. Maybe. Perhaps no one else is making so much noise as i am.

Lastly, our senior minister has come up to say something like if we do not have an extraodinary government, we will fall back to the Southeast Asian times. Just look around you etc etc. Well, i have only one comment. Its similar to a parent telling the kid "If you eat all these sweets tonight, all your teeth will surely fall out tomorrow. U eat lar! See whether how u like it to have no teeth tomorrow".

Look, i am not some sour grape, bad attidude, ungrateful person who is so jealous of the increment. I am all for it, if it can be fully justified. I am upset because the Govt did not even run this through Parliament or even ask oponions or polls of the public! They just implemented it and say "It is done, whether you like it or not. Here are our reasons. Not happy? Not convinced? Then boo-hoo! Too bad for you!" I remember someone telling me about the elections and the amount of money that was given out to all of us. He said, "You just wait. The PM is giving u a delicious drumstick now. Soon, he will take the entire chicken back from you."haha! I found that very humourous. Hmmm, i wonder if there is truth in that. Perhaps to fund this, that is why they needed to increase GST by another 2%! haha. I am kidding! =P

But God says to obey our leaders so we have to continue to pray for them beacause the entire nation is in their hands and i do hope they will have the charateristics of great leaders that i have mentioned before.

Let's pray for them.

Praise The Lord

Amen.