How many of us are approached and asked for money/donations regularly (say more than a few times a week)? How many of us need to hire personal assistants to deal with our workload? How many of us are expected to be accountable to tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of individuals to which we are responsible?
On Twitter and elsewhere, many expressed considerable anger and cynicism regarding the recent pay rise approved by the Selangor state assembly, which seemed to be rooted in what can sometimes be a healthy suspicion of politicians in general.
This article seeks to provide the open minded with some alternative views.
I can certainly sympathise with how no one likes to hear of people in power voting to give themselves more money from the public pot. Perhaps however, there are more things to consider beyond our knee jerk reaction.
What are an assemblyperson’s financial responsibilities?
Let’s use as a baseline the basic monthly salary of a Selangor assemblyperson prior to the raise: RM6,000.
This may be a relatively comfortable sum of money say, for a fresh grad, or a single individual in his or her mid twenties say.
In thinking about larger units than that however, I found the remarks of oneMalaysiakini commentator to ring quite true: “My salary is in (the) five figure(s) and it is still not enough living in KL supporting three children.”
That, I presume is for a gentleman working a normal job, providing for his family - something most of us aspire to do.
Now add to a standard family’s financial burdens the need to maintain one or more service centers for an assemblyperson’s constituency. This includes rental of premises and paying the salaries of assistants - whose work covers responding to the concerns of constituents, media relations, administrative work, research for state assembly sittings, and innumerable other duties.
All this is before we count the unceasing requests for funds that come from needy constituents, local charitable or cultural organisations, and so on. Any elected representative can tell you that expectations for them to donate are huge.
So, how does one stretch RM6,000, or for that matter the new figure of RM11,000, to cover all these costs?
To the best of my knowledge, the government does not provide allocations for any of the above; and not only do political parties seldom provide funds to defray these costs, some even do the reverse and require that assemblypersons pay part of their salaries to the party as dues.
Problems in political finance
Political finance may be one of the biggest problems facing the world as a whole. When politicians are not sufficiently funded, certain things are bound to happen.
In the best case scenario, elected representatives keep their day jobs to make ends meet. This is of course acceptable, but it also means that said individual is not a full time servant of the people. A doctor or lawyer who has only ever practised part-time cannot be expected to have the same skill levels or dedication as one who has always practised full time - such is the essence of professionalism, and I think it is fair to expect the same of our politicians.
In even worse scenarios, politicians who lack money start becoming beholden to people who have no lack of it at all.
This point hardly bears belabouring, we all know what happens when big business starts pulling politician’s strings. Everywhere around us we see how the greed of politicians ruins lives; there is no telling how prosperous Malaysia could be right now, if not for individuals who have put their own financial interests above that of the nation’s.
That said, I can assure you, that there is no a single politician alive or dead in Malaysia who made a ‘fortune’ from his or her salary.
If no adjustment is made, we are merely in effect rewarding those who seek alternative ‘means of income’, while allowing those who refuse to to carry on struggling under the weight of their financial burdens.
Peanuts and monkeys
Some consider the Singapore model a bit of an extreme, and one could certainly argue that, especially in terms of the very high quantums they pay their politicians. Hard to argue with the lower incidence of corruption though, various though Singapore’s other faults are.
At the end of the day, I have personally tried not to throw the metaphorical first stone, and be overly critical of how people do a job that I myself am not willing to do.
If you would truly be willing to step up, and volunteer to perform all the various duties of an assemblyperson properly and well for RM6,000 a month, then I believe you have every right to be critical of this salary hike.
If you - presumably a well-educated, well-meaning Malaysian with a strong opinion of how our country could be better run - would not, then perhaps this would be another illustration of the principle of natural selection, otherwise expressed in the saying “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.
In a microcosm of the larger brain drain issues facing Malaysia, we seem to have largely failed to attract Malaysia’s best and brightest to public service. No doubt the situation has improved in recent times, and no doubt the issue is not remuneration alone, but the fact remains that most of my peers would never dream of a career in this field.
I don’t think that increasing the salary of elected representatives is going to solve that problem in a stroke of the pen, but I doubt very much that it will hurt. I know some people who really don’t deserve the raise at all, but then again, I also know more than a few who I think really deserve to have their financial burdens lifted. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Being critical can be very popular sometimes, and I believe we should always welcome all diversity of views. That said, perhaps in this case, we can root our arguments in an objective and thorough examination of the facts and figures.
On Twitter and elsewhere, many expressed considerable anger and cynicism regarding the recent pay rise approved by the Selangor state assembly, which seemed to be rooted in what can sometimes be a healthy suspicion of politicians in general.
This article seeks to provide the open minded with some alternative views.
I can certainly sympathise with how no one likes to hear of people in power voting to give themselves more money from the public pot. Perhaps however, there are more things to consider beyond our knee jerk reaction.
What are an assemblyperson’s financial responsibilities?
Let’s use as a baseline the basic monthly salary of a Selangor assemblyperson prior to the raise: RM6,000.This may be a relatively comfortable sum of money say, for a fresh grad, or a single individual in his or her mid twenties say.
In thinking about larger units than that however, I found the remarks of oneMalaysiakini commentator to ring quite true: “My salary is in (the) five figure(s) and it is still not enough living in KL supporting three children.”
That, I presume is for a gentleman working a normal job, providing for his family - something most of us aspire to do.
Now add to a standard family’s financial burdens the need to maintain one or more service centers for an assemblyperson’s constituency. This includes rental of premises and paying the salaries of assistants - whose work covers responding to the concerns of constituents, media relations, administrative work, research for state assembly sittings, and innumerable other duties.
All this is before we count the unceasing requests for funds that come from needy constituents, local charitable or cultural organisations, and so on. Any elected representative can tell you that expectations for them to donate are huge.
So, how does one stretch RM6,000, or for that matter the new figure of RM11,000, to cover all these costs?
To the best of my knowledge, the government does not provide allocations for any of the above; and not only do political parties seldom provide funds to defray these costs, some even do the reverse and require that assemblypersons pay part of their salaries to the party as dues.
Problems in political finance
Political finance may be one of the biggest problems facing the world as a whole. When politicians are not sufficiently funded, certain things are bound to happen.
In the best case scenario, elected representatives keep their day jobs to make ends meet. This is of course acceptable, but it also means that said individual is not a full time servant of the people. A doctor or lawyer who has only ever practised part-time cannot be expected to have the same skill levels or dedication as one who has always practised full time - such is the essence of professionalism, and I think it is fair to expect the same of our politicians.
In even worse scenarios, politicians who lack money start becoming beholden to people who have no lack of it at all.
This point hardly bears belabouring, we all know what happens when big business starts pulling politician’s strings. Everywhere around us we see how the greed of politicians ruins lives; there is no telling how prosperous Malaysia could be right now, if not for individuals who have put their own financial interests above that of the nation’s.
That said, I can assure you, that there is no a single politician alive or dead in Malaysia who made a ‘fortune’ from his or her salary.
If no adjustment is made, we are merely in effect rewarding those who seek alternative ‘means of income’, while allowing those who refuse to to carry on struggling under the weight of their financial burdens.
Peanuts and monkeys
Some consider the Singapore model a bit of an extreme, and one could certainly argue that, especially in terms of the very high quantums they pay their politicians. Hard to argue with the lower incidence of corruption though, various though Singapore’s other faults are.
At the end of the day, I have personally tried not to throw the metaphorical first stone, and be overly critical of how people do a job that I myself am not willing to do.
If you would truly be willing to step up, and volunteer to perform all the various duties of an assemblyperson properly and well for RM6,000 a month, then I believe you have every right to be critical of this salary hike.
If you - presumably a well-educated, well-meaning Malaysian with a strong opinion of how our country could be better run - would not, then perhaps this would be another illustration of the principle of natural selection, otherwise expressed in the saying “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.
In a microcosm of the larger brain drain issues facing Malaysia, we seem to have largely failed to attract Malaysia’s best and brightest to public service. No doubt the situation has improved in recent times, and no doubt the issue is not remuneration alone, but the fact remains that most of my peers would never dream of a career in this field.
I don’t think that increasing the salary of elected representatives is going to solve that problem in a stroke of the pen, but I doubt very much that it will hurt. I know some people who really don’t deserve the raise at all, but then again, I also know more than a few who I think really deserve to have their financial burdens lifted. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Being critical can be very popular sometimes, and I believe we should always welcome all diversity of views. That said, perhaps in this case, we can root our arguments in an objective and thorough examination of the facts and figures.
NATHANIEL TAN is entering his third month of unemployment, but appears to be yet unable to shake the Selangor apologist habit.
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