YOURSAY | MPs, ministers making big bucks a travesty of justice

YOURSAY | ‘How come politicians can enjoy multiple pension payments?’

Syed Saddiq shines spotlight on how MPs, ministers make big bucks via long service

Mazilamani: Thank you, Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, for the exposure on how politicians can earn themselves handsome wages or pensions, just by serving a long time as an elected representative or being a minister.

Now it becomes very clear why people hold on to party leadership post (a step away from a ministerial position), ever ready to betray or backstab a gullible and weak leader, start a new party as leader, and frog leap from one party to another. The entire salary and perks package is a heavenly gift.

This calls to mind what the fourth and seventh prime minister would have made. How many gratuities and pensions as minister of several ministries, deputy prime minister and two-time prime minister plus head of foundations has he made?

And not to forget the litany of perks and privileges. It is like "tikus jatuh ke dalam gudang beras".

If Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob is truly into reforms, it should all start here and now. There must be numerous other areas to be looked into.

Cyclonus: I agree. I'm glad someone said it out loud. This is why I'm so upset with the leaders/politicians holding public office.

They set their own rules on how much to remunerate themselves with our tax money and national resources and what we get in return is at best mediocre quality leadership and decision-making on public policy.

Accountability is also wanting when weaknesses and shortcomings are exposed. I have yet to see a convicted politician serve any jail time. It's no wonder why some government servants feel enticed to follow in their footsteps.

Proarte: Syed Saddiq is saying all the right things and makes me re-evaluate my suspicion of his motives because he was a protege of Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Perhaps his break from Pejuang to form Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) is his 'coming of age' politically and his genuine desire to chart his own course and present a new paradigm based on integrity, fairness, equality of citizens and good governance.

Whether this is lip service in the mould of PKR president Anwar Ibrahim, who is famous for being 'all things to all men', remains to be seen.

But for the sake of Malaysia, I hope Syed Saddiq matures and becomes a leader who can contribute to rehabilitating Malaysia which has suffered so much due to the ravages of Mahathirism for the past 40 years.

His faux pas over Zakir Naik, the divisive Islamic demagogue and fugitive from India facing multiple charges, I believe was due to pressure from Mahathir.

It was a gross political miscalculation which damaged Saddiq's credibility but being a greenhorn in politics, I believe we should forgive him as long as he does not resort to the default Islamic card which most Malay politicians fall back on for cheap votes and as a cover for their misdeeds.

Another leader who has great potential to change Malaysia for the better is Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin. He has intellect, capability and decisiveness. Umno is his vehicle to achieve his aims to be prime minister and I strongly support him in his endeavour.

No party has all the solutions to help Malaysia, so let us hope politicians who are sincere and who do not see political office as 'big business' but as an opportunity to change the country for the better are given our support despite not being in the parties we traditionally support.

Umno, MCA and MIC represent old politics and have to reinvent themselves. This applies to opposition parties as well. They have moulded their politics as a mirror image of the BN model but make great claims to have more integrity and capability.

However, they wasted the opportunity to show their worth by allowing themselves to be controlled by Mahathir in a most ignominious manner, who attacked the very foundations of their supposed ideology and principles by scoffing and ditching the Pakatan Harapan manifesto.

Ex-Wfw: Based on the time-based pension scheme, we should know who is behind it.

When a government servant had to work continuously for 25 years to benefit from a single pension, how come a politician can enjoy multiple pension payments? This is really a shameless scheme to feather themselves.

How come all the older politicians, including those in the opposition, did not raise this issue earlier?

Headhunter: This is indeed a travesty of justice. Everyone should only have one pension unless one gets an additional one from outside the government. A public servant who serves in a different department doesn't get multiple pensions, do they?

One can understand why those old goats, some with one leg already in the coffin, refused to give way to younger leaders. It’s because they swipe all the green tufts for themselves.

These politicians keep rewarding themselves while the rest of us remain dirt poor. Also, it's time also for ministers and their deputies to have at least a basic degree to qualify for ministerial posts. Some are worse than village idiots in terms of performance and capability.

It pains us that our hard-earned taxes are used to pay them.

OCT: All these shenanigans have been there all this while. Nobody wants to blow the whistle as they benefited from them. The people are not aware as we are not privy to them.

Respect and credit must be given to Syed Saddiq for highlighting this issue. Malaysia is wasting lots of financial resources to all these unscrupulous MPs who only know how to milk the country’s pocket but don't work for their pay.

This is a very gross unprecedented course of injustice. Malaysia is spending a lot on unproductive and non-revenue expenses for a bunch of deadwood. No wonder, Malaysia is always in shortage of funds and needs to borrow more money to finance the operating budget.

BrownCheetah9736: High salaries and packages for ministers are meant to deter corruption and illegal means of income. Like how it is in Singapore.

But Singapore ministers have good qualifications and are intelligent enough to learn whatever they don’t know. On top of that, they are hard-working and work long hours. When they are not doing ministry work on weekends, they attend to their constituencies and grassroots issues.

Here, we have a corrupt bunch who never has enough. They are intelligent and hardworking on matters of self-enrichment like issuing letters of support and being involved in dodgy procurement contracts.

When they are not busy with these, they are busy breaking the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and living a double life.

Dr Raman Letchumanan: It is interesting why none of the opposition MPs has revealed this so far. Probably now they will be upset with Syed Saddiq.

The government should be transparent on all payments made to elected representatives in each of the positions they hold. This borders on criminality, especially when we see them handing out RM50 food baskets to the poor or crowing how much they have sacrificed for the needy.

We, the voters, should hold them accountable and vote for them based on how open and sincere they are, rather than along party lines.

• COMMENT | How much does the average minister cost the taxpayer?

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