What are the ministers' salary benchmark to

Updated 17 Dec 2008: Salary benchmark is based on base + bonuses

For some reason or another, it went into my head to search around for the elusive formula which is used by our government to peg their salaries to the private sector.

This is what I've found out from PSD:

• For the benchmark data, only earnings of Singapore citizens, Singapore Permanent Residents, and Malaysians working in Singapore are included.
  
  
• The benchmarks are based on Principal Earned Income which has been taxed. These consist of earnings from the individual’s primary source of employment and include monthly salaries, bonuses, stock options, partnershipfees and commissions. Unearned and passive forms of income, such as dividends, rent and interest, are excluded.
  
  
• Stock options are included in the salaries of the top income earners. However, the gains from stock options vested each year are discounted by 50%. This means we only take half of the stock option gains in the current year, as current year income. This is because the amount of stock options are usually accumulated over a few years, and the gains may be quite large. Taking the total gains would cause incomes to escalate, and is not a good reflection of the actual earnings.

In fact, according to PSD in end 2007, these are the following base monthly salaries:

• President: $119,520
• Prime Minister: $115,920
• Minister/Senior Permanent Secretary: $59,760
• Entry Superscale Grade: $18,240
• Member of Parliament: $13,710

Using the example of the prime minister, his base annual salary will be less than $1.4million, not the floated $3.87 million, which will be his salary + whatever bonuses.

Now the million dollar question is... Which pay got cut? The base? Or just the bonuses? What other extras are there in the salary?

Sometimes I do not understand why the government like to shoot themselves in their own foot.