David Marshall on Million Dollars Ministers
| Below comment from David Marshall was back in 1994. Unfortunately the clean up he spoke of never took place and the rot within has spread like a cancerous sore to infiltrate senior ranks of public administration...... Subject: David Marshall In 1994 (when PAP ministers started enjoying their high pay schemes):Well said ........ David Marshall. David Marshall In 1994 (when PAP ministers started enjoying their high pay schemes): I've got nothing against money. I'd like to have money myself! I'd like to have a house and a garden and dogs and a car and a chauffeur but, look, I've got a flat. I've got a swimming pool attached to the flat. I've not even got a car but I use taxis. I have a dignified way of life without being wealthy. I don't see the necessity of owning a Mercedes-Benz and a swimming pool and a couple of mistresses. I think we've got our values all wrong. You know $ 96,000 a month for a Prime Minister and $ 60,000 a month for a minister. What the hell do you do with all that money? You can't eat it! What do you do with it? Your children don't need all that money. My children have had the best of education. In fact, I'm very proud of them. One of them is a senior registrar to two major hospitals in Oxford . Another of them is a consultant in European law to the Securities and Investment Board in the United Kingdom . They've had their education. There are no complaints. I never earned $60,000 a month or $90,000 a month. When I was Chief Minister, I earned $8,000 a month. Look, what is happening today is we are encouraged to and are becoming worshippers of the Golden Calf. We have lost sight of the joy and excitement of public service, helping our fellow men. The joy and excitement of seeking and understanding the miracle of the living, the duty and the grandeur. We have lost taste for heroic action in the service of our people. We have become good bourgeois seeking comfort, security. It's like seeking a crystal coffin and being fed by intravenous injections through pipes in the crystal coffin; crystal coffins stuck with certificates of your pragmatic abilities. It's time we start to clean up Singapore politics and get rid of the greedy self-serving politicians. |
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