Singapore president and prime minister to take salary cuts

Singaporean President SR Nathan and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will take a 19 per cent salary cut next year, leading a civil-service-wide downward salary adjustment to offset the impact of the global financial crisis, local media reports said Tuesday, dpa reported.

Thedollars (2.07 million US dollars ) and 3.04 million Singapore president and prime minister would earn 3.14 million Singapore dollars (2 million US dollars) with the cuts in 2009.

Salaries of ministers and senior permanent secretaries would be reduced by 18 per cent and allowances for members of Parliament would be reduced by 16 per cent.

Teo Chee Hean, the minister in charge of the Civil Service, said the public sector salaries follow the market up and down.

"The mechanism we introduced last year to link a significant proportion of the salary of senior civil servants to the performance of the economy is working as intended. This mechanism allows salaries to respond more rapidly to market conditions," the Channel News Asia quoted Teo as saying.

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