Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, will earn five times more than US President George Bush this year after a pay hike on Monday boosted his annual salary to S$3.1 million ($2.05 million).
A minister told parliament on Monday that other Singapore government ministers - who are already among the best paid in the world - will also see their salaries jump by about 60 percent to an average of S$1.9 million ($1.26 million).
"For the public service to remain an attractive employer, our terms must keep pace with the private sector," Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, who is also minister in charge of the civil service, said in parliament. The ministerial salary increase - which will take effect in two steps by the end of next year - is slightly smaller than the government had originally proposed.
Lee said last month the salaries of Singapore ministers and top civil servants might have to rise by as much as S$1 million ($660,000) to S$2.2 million ($1.45 million) because they had fallen way below benchmark top salaries in the private sector. Lee's announcement sparked an outcry, with hundreds of Singaporeans signing an online petition and writing to newspapers to protest against the move.
Some Singaporeans said the ministerial salaries did not reflect the country's economy or the government's performance, adding that the government was tactless to raise ministers' salaries now given Singapore's widening income gap.
Since 1994, the salaries of Singapore ministers have been set at two-thirds the median pay of the 48 best-paid bankers, lawyers, accountants, engineers and executives in multinationals and manufacturing firms.
Under the wage revision, the bonuses that Singapore ministers receive will depend on their performance, to be assessed by Lee, and the rate of Singapore's economic growth, Teo said. He said ministers can get a maximum "gross domestic product bonus" of four months worth of salary if the Singapore economy grows by 8 percent or more.
Lee, who is estimated to have earned S$2 million previously, will earn six times more than Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after the pay hike. The last pay hike was in 2000. The government has defended the salary increase as necessary to attract the brightest people and to prevent corruption.
Lee Kuan Yew, modern Singapore's first prime minister and father of Lee, told parliament on Monday that resource-poor Singapore needed an "extraordinary government" to support it. "If you fail here, you go back to a Southeast Asian situation," Lee senior said. "Just look around you."
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