LETTER | Slash remuneration for elected leaders

LETTER | For a long time now, politics in Malaysia has been viewed as a lucrative opportunity for politicians to enrich themselves.

Rather than the first and foremost priority being about helping the average citizens, our politicians instead are mainly driven by their pursuit of wealth and profits via their political careers.

One main reason for this is that our political positions come with high levels of income, be it through their salaries, benefits, pensions and others.

A New Straits Times article on Jan 26 revealed that our MPs’ monthly salary, including their allowances, can come to an average of RM25,700. Additionally, MPs can claim various allowances or subsidies for specific purposes.

Meanwhile, assemblypersons reportedly receive a monthly allowance of between RM6,000 and RM15,000 each on average.

Apart from that, some MPs and assemblypersons hold positions in GLCs (a practice which must stop immediately), for which the chairperson post provides them an additional RM40,000 and RM50,000 a month.

With such large amounts of money given to them once elected, it’s no wonder that many of our politicians covet certain political positions and choose to enter elections in the first place!

Given the fact there are many urgent issues afflicting society; such as social issues, socioeconomic issues, huge national debt, and poor economic growth, it’s only right and responsible for our politicians (as well as the rest of the elite class, for that matter) to contribute financially to the nation by reducing their income.

With this move, the government will be able to fund more impactful pro-people programmes to uplift peoples’ socioeconomic status.

The onus should mainly be on our highly-paid, wealthy politicians to contribute financially to the nation’s coffers; instead of placing such burdens on the common people via regressive taxes, discontinuing pension and others.

Besides that, all this begs the critical question: Why are these individuals receiving such high monthly incomes as well as pensions in the first place?

There’s simply no justification for such high levels of income for our politicians, especially given the country’s dire financial situation.

Instead, those who truly deserve to receive higher levels of income would be our public healthcare workers, teachers, workers who provide essential services and so on.

Not taking jobs seriously

One reason why so many of our politicians are insincere and irresponsible is precisely because their income levels are so high and there are huge amounts of money to be earned by those in these political positions.

Essentially, the high salaries, benefits, as well as pensions all serve as a powerful, corrupting magnet that attracts and drives people to get elected, all for the wrong reasons.

This is one main reason why so many of our politicians don’t do their jobs responsibly and properly take care of the needs and well-being of the average citizens.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense to remove this particular factor from our politics and ensure that our politicians only receive fair, and not excessive amounts of income.

Then, politics will be less appealing as a highly profitable career, and instead will mainly attract those who genuinely wish to serve as well as help the people and improve society as a whole.

During this period. where so many people are facing such financial hardships and burdens, it’s downright unfair and immoral that our politicians are receiving so much financially and living wealthily. They don’t deserve such a high income and must take a pay cut!

The amount of wealth that’s being accumulated in the hands of this small class of people must be redistributed back to society.

Instead of being used to enrich our politicians, this money must be channelled into important, uplifting pro-people programmes that can truly help the struggling, average citizens.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.