I found an article about Singaporean Prime Minister Lee raising a wave of dissatisfaction in his country over the salaries he and the parliamentarians will get after their proposed salary hike. This got me thinking how much are the other heads of countries getting.
What’s the fuss?
So according to the article in Channel NewsAsia, there is an outrage in otherwise conservative and reserved Singapore over the salary hike which will give the country’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong an annual income over US$2 million! Well I bet the Singaporeans may a have little problem with that! Even at current levels (pre-increase) their PM is still drawing cool US$1.6 million. Not too bad at all.
Remember also that Singapore does not really enjoy the democracy we would normally understand under such term. For instance there is a ban on any type of political rally without a hard to obtain permit, all the major media outlets are owned by the government etc. And therefore disgruntled Singaporeans have to resort to Internet forums to be able to safely voice their outrage.
Compare to others
I also quickly looked for some comparisons around the World and in reflection to those the Singaporean PM’s salary really does stand out:
- US President George W Bush earns yearly in wages US$400,000
- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe takes home yearly US$240,000
- Australian Prime Minister John Howard is yearly paid at levels around US$260,000
Five times the salary of the President of the USA, does this make the Singaporean PM the best paid politician on the planet?
At the end it seems that even the little democracy left in Singapore has ran its course. The PM seeing all the disagreement quickly rushed out with a band aid solution announcing freezing his salary for next five years donating the difference to charity.
I guess he will now have to make ends meet on measly US$1.62 million annually. Don’t you just want to give the guy a hug? Do you know any politician legally earning from his office even more? Let me know.
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