I was reminded when I read the Papsicle post about how we now will have two individuals who were apparently members of parliament but were never VOTED in. Their entire ride into parliament was via the convenient administrative mechanism called “uncontested” which in common usage is referred to as a walkover.
The two who have announced that they will not be contesting (they never did anyway), are Ms Ho Geok Choo and Mr Koo Tsai Kee. They both got into parliament via the uncontested path with Ms Ho in 2001 and 2006 and Mr Koo in 1991, 1997, 2001 and 2006. You can verify these by checking the stats here.
And guess what? It appears that they both will now qualify for some form of a life-long pension – all to be borne by the tax payer. Exactly what did these two individuals do? I don’t know. I am sure they must have done some work as an MP and I am sure someone will point it out to me.
In case it wasn’t evident, the PAP looks after their kind. The so-called pension is only for any MP who did two terms and stood down. You will very rarely see a PAP MP stand-down after one term. The reward for a PAP yes-man is to stay for two terms and then get a very nice pension for life! Exactly what the pension is I don’t know by Wikipedia says the following:
“Persons who have reached the age of 50 years and retired as MPs and who have served in this capacity for not less than nine years may be granted a pension for the rest of their lives. The annual amount payable is 1⁄30 of the person’s highest annual salary for every completed year of service and 1⁄360 for every uncompleted year, up to a ceiling of two-thirds of the Member’s annual salary.[90] No person has an absolute right to compensation for past services or to any pension or gratuity, and the President may reduce or withhold pensions and gratuities upon an MP’s conviction for corruption.[91]“
Nice. Really nice.