{"id":90722,"date":"2026-10-06T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T09:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=90722"},"modified":"2026-10-06T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T09:18:09","slug":"parliament-approves-salary-increases-for-president-speakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=90722","title":{"rendered":"Parliament approves salary increases for President, Speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"text-primary article-summary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/live-singapore-parliament-october-2026?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"inline font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"typography-test-id\"><b>Follow our live coverage here.<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013 <!-- -->Parliament has unanimously approved increases to the salaries of the President, Speaker of Parliament and Deputy Speakers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Leader of the House Indranee Rajah proposed the changes in three parliamentary motions on Oct 6, after the Government accepted<!-- --> <!-- -->recommendations by an independent committee that had been appointed to review Singapore\u2019s political salary framework.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The privy purse sum will be increased from $1,568,900 to $2,568,200, to give effect to the revisions to President Tharman Shanmugaratnam\u2019s salary and medical benefits as recommended by the committee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The sum is part of the Civil List, which provides the funds to maintain the President\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Indranee noted that the president\u2019s salary is pegged to the reference monthly salary of the prime minister, and consists of a monthly base salary of $180,000, a 13th month bonus and an annual variable component pegged at the rates received by the general civil service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The proposed privy purse sum budgets for an annual variable component of 1.25 months, which is consistent with the<!-- --> <!-- -->budgeting practice in past years, she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The actual number of months of annual variable component that the president receives each year will be calculated on the same basis as that for civil servants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Indranee said the privy purse sum also includes provision for medical benefits of $3,200, with the actual amount possibly being less depending on the claims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She noted that Parliament had earlier <!-- -->in 2026<!-- --> approved increases to the budget covering Istana operations and the President\u2019s staff, as operating costs had risen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In March,\u00a0the House had approved the allocation of an additional $2,559,100 to the Civil List, including an increase in the salaries of President Tharman\u2019s personal staff from $6,696,700 to $7,318,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On the annual salary of the Speaker of Parliament, Indranee said it is pegged to the reference annual salary for a minister at the entry-level MR4 grade as of Oct 15, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The sum similarly comprises a monthly base salary, 13th month bonus and an annual variable component pegged at the rates received by the general civil service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">As it is a part-time post, Speaker of Parliament Seah Kian Peng\u00a0will receive 50 per cent of the MR4 reference annual salary, and his salary will be increased from $550,000 to $900,000 assuming an annual variable component of one month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The annual salary for the Deputy Speaker \u2013 also a part-time post \u2013 is pegged at 15 per cent of the Speaker\u2019s part-time annual salary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">That means Deputy Speakers Christopher de Souza and Xie Yao Quan will each get $135,000 a year, assuming an annual variable component of one month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Similar motions were tabled in Parliament after the review of ministerial salaries in 2012, and those were passed without debate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/politics\/parliament-approves-increases-to-salaries-of-president-speaker-of-parliament-and-deputy-speakers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Follow our live coverage here. SINGAPORE \u2013 Parliament has unanimously approved increases to the salaries of the President, Speaker of Parliament and Deputy Speakers. Leader&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}