{"id":494525,"date":"2026-09-21T15:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.financialafrik.com\/en\/?p=494525"},"modified":"2026-09-21T15:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:54:40","slug":"why-singapore-pays-its-politicians-like-bankers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.financialafrik.com\/en\/2026\/09\/21\/why-singapore-pays-its-politicians-like-bankers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Singapore Pays Its Politicians Like Bankers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Aboubakr Kaira Barry,<\/strong> CFA, Managing Director Results Associates, and Chair of the Omou Financial Literacy Center, Bethesda, MD, USA<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Financial Times<\/span><\/i>, in a September 13, 2026 article, \u201cBenchmarking and Bonuses: Why Singapore Pays Its Politicians Like Bankers,\u201d reported an increase of US$1 million in the salary of the Prime Minister of Singapore, bringing his total package to US$2.8 million (S$3.6 million)\u2014seven times the salary of Donald Trump. You may ask why this is so.<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer goes back to the vision of Singapore\u2019s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away in 2015. At independence in 1965, Mr Lee said he realised that Singapore, a country not endowed with natural resources, had only its people, brains, and skills. The job of government was to train these resources, organise them, and sort them out through meritocracy to create an environment conducive to higher living standards.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his own words, in 1971, six years after independence, he said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe main burden of present planning and implementation rests on the shoulders of some 300 key persons\u2026 Outstanding men in civil service, police, armed forces. They have worked the details of policies set by the government and seen to their implementation. These people come from poor and middle-class homes. Singapore is a meritocracy. And these men have risen to the top by their own merit, hard work and high performance. If all 300 were to crash in one jumbo jet, then Singapore will disintegrate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In a speech to Parliament in 1994, four years after his retirement as prime minister, he said:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience in Asia has led me to a different conclusion. To get a good government, you must have good men in charge of government. I have observed over the last 40 years that even with a poor system of government but with good, strong men in charge, people get passable government with decent outcomes. On the other hand, Britain and France between them wrote over 80 constitutions for their different colonies\u2026. But the societies did not have the leaders who could work those institutions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To reduce the chance of government losing first-rate talent to the private sector, the government decided in 1995 to peg ministers\u2019 salaries to the six highest-paid positions in the private sector\u2014in banking, manufacturing, accountancy, engineering, law, and managing multinational corporations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not the norm in other countries to pay the market rate for the job,\u201d Lee would later reflect. \u201cWherever we go, we are greatly envied because other countries would like to do likewise. They just don\u2019t have the political strength.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The logic of the policy is to attract first-rate talent to government, discourage the temptation of corruption, and concentrate their minds on getting outcomes for citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

In its current form of application, as narrated by the <\/span>Financial Times<\/span><\/i>, junior ministers\u2019 salaries are benchmarked against the median salaries of the 1,000 highest-paid Singaporeans, which is then reduced by a 40 percent discount to reflect the fact that public service entails some sacrifice. But it also has to be sufficiently rewarding materially to get the best people into government and make sure they do their best for the people while in government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salaries for the various roles in government are linked to the junior minister\u2019s benchmarked salary; the prime minister receives twice the compensation of a junior minister. Under the current guidelines, junior ministers\u2019 benchmark salaries rose from S$1.1 million (about US$860,000) to S$1.8 million (about US$1.41 million), but were capped at a 9 percent increase, resulting in S$1.2 million (about US$940,000). The prime minister\u2019s total package increased from S$2.2 million (about US$1.72 million) to S$3.6 million (about US$2.8 million). Sixty-five percent of the package is fixed and 35 percent is variable, in the form of a bonus dependent on individual performance and national performance, such as the employment rate, real income growth rate, and real GDP growth rate, thereby aligning the money paid to them with the results obtained for the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1970, Singapore\u2019s GDP per capita was about US$926, only 17.7 percent of the US level of US$5,234. By 2025, it had reached US$98,814, or 109.8 percent of US GDP per capita of US$90,027. Singapore moved from roughly one-sixth of the US level to about 10 percent above it\u2014not because of high salaries alone, but because it built a system that connected meritocratic selection, execution, compensation, and accountability to results for the people.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the lessons for African leaders?<\/b><\/p>\n

First of all, we can have development with high income inequality, managed by and for the benefit of vested interests associated with the powers of the day. Or we can have development that yields broad-based prosperity, uplifting the majority of citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

To achieve the latter outcome, there is no substitute for the ultimate leader having the political will to remove the obstacles to creating broad-based prosperity. This includes standing up to vested interests, enabling full transparency over the money coming into government coffers and the money going out to fund activities that broaden prosperity, and creating incentives for investments that are self-financing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The above cannot happen without a civil service led by ministers and senior leadership selected on a meritocratic basis, well compensated, and capable of translating government policies into concrete results citizens can feel over time. Presidents and ministers can decide on the best policies in the world, but nothing other than a build-up of debt will happen if policies are not backed up by a first-rate civil service that can execute them, aided by first-class mechanisms for selecting staff, compensating them well, and aligning their compensation with doing what is good for the majority of citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

A bloated civil service, poorly paid and unanchored to the priorities of citizens, is a tax imposed on citizens\u2014especially the most vulnerable\u2014because the focus in situations like this will be on how to use official positions to self-enrich. Such a civil service costs citizens twice: first, through salaries paid to people who do not create results; and second, through the appropriation of resources belonging to all citizens for their own benefit. Government money is orphan capital belonging to everybody; and what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody. Hence the need for first-rate management of personnel and resources to ensure that they benefit the largest possible number of citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n

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By Aboubakr Kaira Barry, CFA, Managing Director Results Associates, and Chair of the Omou Financial Literacy Center, Bethesda, MD, USA The Financial Times, in a September 13, 2026 article, \u201cBenchmarking and Bonuses: Why Singapore Pays Its Politicians Like Bankers,\u201d reported an increase of US$1 million in the salary of the Prime Minister of Singapore, bringing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":536766,"featured_media":494526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16412],"tags":[21634,21635],"class_list":["post-494525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","category-contribution","tag-aboubakr-kaira-barry","tag-singapore","post_format-post-format-aside","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Singapore Pays Its Politicians Like Bankers - Financial Afrik<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Headed by Adama Wade and his team of 20 journalists, Kapital Afrik offers strategic and financial information to executives and managers. 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