SINGAPORE: The review of Singapore’s political salaries will be addressed in parliament on Tuesday (Sep 8), with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Coordinating Minister for Public Services Chan Chun Sing delivering the government's response on the matter.

Political salaries are reviewed by an independent committee that is appointed once every five years, but there has been no change to how much ministers and parliamentarians are paid since 2011.

The last review was completed in 2017 with the government deciding not to implement any changes, while a review slated for 2023 was deferred due to prevailing global circumstances.

The political salaries framework covers the salaries of the president, prime minister, speaker of parliament, deputy speaker of parliament, members of parliament (MPs), non-constituency MPs, nominated MPs and political appointment holders.

CNA looks at how the salaries are calculated and benchmarked against the private sector, and why past recommendations to raise them were not taken up.

How are political salaries calculated?

The political salary formula contains both fixed and variable pay components: 

• A fixed component of 13 months
• An annual variable component, typically set at one month
• An individual performance bonus, set at three months for good performance
• A national bonus, set at three months if targets are met.

If all the boxes are ticked, the political appointment holder could receive an annual salary of 20 months.

The benchmark for an entry-level minister is based on the median income of the top 1,000 Singaporean income earners. A 40 per cent discount is applied to reflect the ethos of sacrifice that political service involves.

An entry level minister is appointed at a grade of MR4, and can also be appointed to more senior grades of MR3, MR2 and MR1 subsequently.

A minister may start out at the lower end of the MR4 range with a monthly salary of S$46,750. This works out to an annual salary of S$935,000, of which the fixed component is S$607,750 and the rest is variable.

The monthly salary at the benchmark level is S$55,000, which comes up to an annual salary of S$1.1 million. The fixed...