A few un-related but important things:

["Antony joseph" <antonyj@tm.net.my>]

If I am not mistaken, in Singapore, ministers do not necessarily need a
political background to be selected. A corrollary is that glib talkers
do not automatically become ministers!

But before we get carried away, please note that all these are easy to
implement in Singapore, given its past & present  political structure.
The single dominant ruling party  has demolished the opposition quite
effectively over the last 3 decades and the communtiy has been 'taught'
to give up some of their freedom of expression in lieu of economic
prosperity.

The biggest challege for India will be in implementing  changes which
produce long term benefits  but are coupled with  short term reversals.

However, even if do not follow Singapore's system of paying  leaders
millions of dollars, by  equating salaries of ministers on par with that
of CEOs of companies, should help us attract good minds into the
government.

Another important thing that Singapore does is to continuously monitor
the productivity of government employees, constantly benchmarking them
against the best in the world ( Unlike in India, where we are thrilled
if one government is marginally better than the previous one!). If we do
not have a polciy on this lets have one. - Productivity  of  government
employees should be benchmarked against their counterparts in other
nations and directly reflected in their salaries/bonuses. ( Should this
go under human
resource development policy?)

Antony
----------
> From: Asher, Mukul Govindji <ecsasher@nus.edu.sg>
> To: debate@indiapolicy.org
> Subject: RE: A few un-related but important things:
> Date: Monday, 30 November 1998 11:28
>
> Dear Mr. Sabhlok
>
> This is about salaries and qualifications in Govt in Singapore:
>
> There are no formal qualifications as such. But a candidate goes
through
> a rigorous screening process for both basic understandinf and
numeracy,
> but also for political aspects as well.
>
> Salaries of the Ministers and top bureaucrats are pegged to private
> sector salaries.
>
> Mukul


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