Friday, December 31, 2010

Politicians pay - percentage of GDP

Source: Economist

We are just less than 24 hours to say good by to 2010 and welcome 2011. Economist published their top 10 charts and no surprise here. The number one is the politicians pay as a percentage of their nations GDP.

Kenya occupies the top spot followed by Singapore. I am not quite sure about Kenya and it's national politics but in Singapore, it's really a talking point. I saw another article somewhere ranking the top 20 politicians pay and I think almost half of them from Singapore. Singapore PM salary is 40x of the average GDP per person of Singapore. Ofcourse in Singapore, politians can have their own businesses and sit in boards of profit making companies. The good side is normally the parties lure succesful businessmans, beurocrats to politics so they are highly qualified and experienced to run a nation (Some may argue that the downside is they run the nation like a company).

Our dear Singh ji is in the bottom of the list with $ 4,106. This is the irony in India where politians are paid such a paltry sums. In relative, the entry level software engineer can demand easily $ 10,000.

Another point to note is the chart only shows the basic pay. If we can count the "Cost to Nation" just like "Cost to company" in case of employees, I am confidant that this will be entirely different. I mean the accommodation costs, security costs, pentions, etc..

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