Bonus Payments to Cabinet Ministers

Mr Leon Perera asked the Prime Minister in each of the past five years, what has been the bonus paid to Cabinet Ministers in terms of (i) the average total number of bonus months, (ii) the highest total number of bonus months paid to an individual Minister and (iii) the lowest total number of bonus months paid to an individual Minister.

The average Performance Bonus (PB) and the range of PB received by Political Officeholders of all grades over the past five years are as shown in the table below:

The pay components of political officeholders are set out in the White Paper on "Salaries for a Capable and Committed Government" tabled in Parliament in 2012. Apart from monthly salary, the salary components include 13th month Non-Pensionable Annual Allowance, Performance Bonus, National Bonus, and Annual Variable Component as paid to civil servants. The benchmark salaries take all these components into account.

The Prime Minister formed a Committee in 2017 to review whether the salary framework established in 2012 remains appropriate and valid against its intended goals, and what adjustments may be useful; and whether there is a need to adjust the salaries should there be a change in overall salary levels based on the proposed framework.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean informed Parliament in March this year that the Committee had affirmed that the current salary structure for political appointment holders, including the National Bonus framework, remained sound. Therefore, we should maintain this structure. While the MR4 benchmark had increased by 9% since 2011, the Government noted that the 2017 MR4 benchmark was lower than the 2016 MR4 benchmark and, hence, had decided to maintain salaries at the current level and watch salary trends further. That remains the position.