Public debate over ministerial salaries tends to revolve around numbers: whether they are justified, whether they are too high and how they compare with those in other countries. On 8 September, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced that the benchmark annual salary for an entry-level minister would rise from $1.1 million to $1.8 million, and the Prime Minister’s from $2.2 million to $3.6 million. There has been plenty of discussion, but few have squarely addressed one question: if business standards are to justify these salaries, should the business approach to accountability — performance indicators, clearly assigned responsibility and consequences for mistakes — not come with them?
Some commentators invoke “opportunity cost” to justify ministerial salaries, arguing that those entering politics give up lucrative private-sector careers. I do not dispute the commitment this entails, but the argument is incomplete. Over the years, several outgoing ministers have moved straight into roles as senior executives, directors or senior advisers at Temasek Holdings, GIC or government-linked companies, some serving for more than 10 years. This is an established arrangement, not a coincidence. If “giving up high private-sector salaries” is to be used to justify their pay, their full career trajectories must be presented, rather than only half the story. In this great debate, someone should speak up about the other half.
On 7 October, Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) published Goh Choon Kang’s article titled “Debunking the myth that high salaries ensure clean government”, which argued that the idea was misleading: Singapore’s clean government is rooted in its electoral system, independent anti-corruption agency and culture of respect for the rule of law, not salaries alone. I agree, and thank Mr Goh for making this clear. But integrity and performance are two different questions. Integrity asks whether officials have abused their positions for personal gain; performance asks whether decisions stand up to scrutiny, lessons are documented and mistakes are corrected. Integrity is the minimum; accountability demands more. One cannot substitute for the other. What I seek to address is the missing chain of accountability linking integrity to performance — the other half of the truth that has yet to be properly debated.
Before entering politics, Minister for Trade and Industry (Energy and Industry) Dr Tan See Leng was chief executive of Parkway Pantai and IHH Healthcare. I too come from the business world and know that high pay comes with targets, and named individuals are responsible for meeting them. When the numbers fall, there is nowhere to hide. The government is not short of data: MRT punctuality, emergency department waiting times, HDB application timelines and peak-hour traffic conditions are all tracked. The crucial question is whether these figures are genuinely tied to ministerial accountability.
Let me offer an example close to home. I once lived in the seven-storey HDB blocks in Bukit Merah Lane. Built by the Singapore Improvement Trust in 1955, these old blocks were upgraded around 1994 to 1995. My family endured the inconvenience, believing we could then live there undisturbed for decades. Yet in 2011, the Housing and Development Board announced that 21 blocks would undergo selective en bloc redevelopment. From upgrading to relocation in 2018, only just over two decades had passed. Every bill paid, every brick laid, came from taxpayers’ money. And what of the families who moved twice or three times — who accounts for their waiting and repeated relocations?
The North–South Corridor, with a budget of about $7.47 billion, is Singapore’s most expensive road project to date. Announced in 2008, it began construction in 2018, with sections promised to open progressively from 2027. Yet on 17 September, the Land Transport Authority announced that overall completion would be delayed by about two years: the viaduct section was pushed back to 2029, and the tunnel section to 2031. How much will the additional costs be? The answer is that they can only be determined after construction is completed. For a tunnel running through densely built-up areas such as Novena and Thomson, complex geology was never an unforeseen event, but a probability that should have been quantified in the risk assessment. Residents enduring daily noise, road closures and declining business have “grown numb”. To whom can they turn for redress?
In his LHZB commentary on 22 September, “The million-dollar question: How much is a minister really worth?”, Tan Chong Huat, senior partner and chairman of a local law firm, also observed that this debate “discloses the rules but not the results”. The parliamentary debate largely reached agreement on the figures, while opposition questions also focused on the calculation method rather than accountability for performance. How pay is linked to performance, and who assesses the quality of decisions, are questions that must also be addressed.
Singapore has no shortage of lessons. What is lacking is the resolve to truly remember them. Confucius once said: “To make a mistake and not correct it — that is the real mistake.”
Take the identity card number incident. In 2024, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) launched its revamped Bizfile online portal before conducting public outreach. Members of the public could simply enter a person’s name to retrieve their full identity card number. ACRA later acknowledged that this had left many people with a negative impression of the new search function and made them uncomfortable. It therefore temporarily disabled the function and apologised.
The potential expenditure involved includes the original cost of establishing a system that identifies people using partial identity card numbers; the emergency response to the Bizfile incident — disabling, modifying, retesting and relaunching the system; nationwide public education; the Personal Data Protection Commission’s (PDPC) enforcement framework; and the rebuilding of identity verification processes by banks, hospitals, insurers and retailers, with the transition period extending to the end of 2026. To date, no one has come forward to say how much it all costs or who is responsible. As taxpayers, we cannot leave these questions unasked.
The MRT suffered three major breakdowns, in 2011, 2015 and 2017. I too was caught in a breakdown, taking more than three hours to get home. Standing on the platform, looking at one anxious face after another, I understood that what hurts the public is not just the disruption, but the lack of clear accountability afterwards.
In business, we follow the “plan, do, check, act” cycle. I insist that my team meet five standards: proposals must be feasible, executable, capable of being put into practice, open to scrutiny and sustainable. If any one of these is not met, the proposal goes back to the drawing board, and not a cent is spent. ISO certification does not mean “I Sign Only”, and accountability cannot become “I don’t know”. The same applies to public governance.
Most people do not expect ministers to be perfect, and genuinely appreciate those willing to give up high salaries to serve. That commitment deserves reasonable remuneration. In the Analects, Zigong says of a gentleman’s errors: “When he errs, everyone sees it; when he corrects his errors, everyone looks up to him.” Mistakes are inevitable, but when they are confronted, corrected and learned from, the public will still place its trust in those responsible.
The real expectation comes down to one thing: humility. When a mistake is made, acknowledge it. I still remember the slogan of the national productivity movement in the 1980s: “Good, Better, Best”. The government repeatedly asks Singaporeans to upgrade their skills and keep retraining. It is time for the government and ministers to hold themselves to the same standard of continuous improvement. As taxpayers, we support reasonable remuneration for them. As citizens, we want to ask just one question: this time, has the lesson truly been learnt?
The writer is the chief executive of a small and medium-sized enterprise.