Are Top Global Companies Really Dying to Hire Our Ministers?

Today we examine another aspect of the official rationale behind the ministers' exorbitant salary increase. This rationale can be expressed as follows:

"Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the pay of cabinet ministers has fallen behind top private-sector earners in Singapore and called for the gap to be closed to keep talent in the government ... Talented Singaporeans are being head-hunted by top global companies as well as by other governments eager to replicate Singapore's success story, Lee said. - Link.

No doubt some civil servants are in high demand by the private sector. Then again, Singaporeans are not complaining about salary increases for civil servants in general. Singaporeans are complaining about salary increases for the PAP ministers.

And these PAP ministers - would "top global companies" really want to hire them?

To investigate this question, all we have to do is draw up a list of ex-PAP ministers, and find out where they went and what they did, after they left politics. If top global companies were really so eager to hire them, we should expect to find ex-PAP ministers working in top corporations such as BP, Shell, Microsoft, Citigroup, British Airways or other Fortune Global 500 companies.

I did some quick googling, and this is what I managed to find:

Dr Tony Tan is currently with GIC and Singapore Press Holdings.

Dr Yeo Ning Hong is on the Board of Directors of Singapore Press Holdings.

S Dhanabalan is the Chairman of Temasek Holdings.

Richard Hu is Chairman of Capitaland.

Yeo Cheow Tong joined Lippo, an Indonesian company.

David Lim joined NOL for a few years, before quitting. (He seems to be unemployed right now - if anyone knows otherwise, please let me know).

Dr Seet Ai Mee is with Courts (Singapore) Limited as a non-executive director.

After retiring from politics, Lim Kim San worked in PSA and Singapore Press Holdings. He passed away last year.

What can we conclude? After leaving politics, our ex-PAP ministers tend to end up, quite predictably, with Singapore's government-linked companies (GLCs). A few, like Yeo Cheow Tong and Dr Seet Ai Mee, end up with non-GLC companies that are definitely not "top global companies".

I could not find a single PAP minister who, after quitting politics, was hired by any remotely "top" or "global" company that wasn't in Mrs Lee Hsien Loong's collection.