Complaining about long working hours, PAP MP Zaqy Mohamad said he felt like working in a “full-time job” whenever he attends Parliament. The PAP MP said he used to work only 1 or 2 days a week, but now he sometimes has to attend a 4 or 5 day work week like an employee:
“In the old days, we used to sit from 1.30pm to 7pm. There’ve been a few times when a 1-2 day sitting became 4 or 5 days because there were a lot of topics, or something controversial came up. That caused a lot of commitment clashes…I also honestly can’t remember the last time I had a social gathering. I’ve lost contact with a lot of my friends, unless they’re in the same industry. It’s really like having two full-time jobs.”
According to state media CNA, the Constitution says a PAP MP can be absent for up to 2 months. Technically, a PAP MP needs only report in Parliament for only 6 times in a year.
Graphic from CNA
Last year in 2017, the ruling party PAP government had only 25 days of work and clocked only 182 hours of work. However, this is less than 10% when compared to the average working hours of 2,340 hours Singaporean employees clocked.
The state media also revealed that the shortest Parliament seating is only 25 minutes, and that sitting was for useless puppet President Halimah Yacob’s recent speech prepared by the PAP Ministers.
PAP MP Zaqy Mohammad then complained about MPs speaking up too much and taking up too much time. The part-time MP who works full-time complained he had no time:
“You have more MPs speaking up and more people putting questions through, which ultimately means having a lot more people making speeches. So I guess that’s why we’re seeing much longer sittings now. It can be difficult. There’s no dispensation on my targets and KPIs, so despite having fewer hours than usual to work, you still have to perform to your role. In my previous firm, I used to take leave for Parliament sittings, and it could go all the way to a negative balance. It becomes no-pay leave after that. Now, I still take annual leave when there are important meetings I have to miss, or if I have to go overseas on Parliament business. But otherwise, they just benchmark me on my targets.”
PAP MP Lee Bee Wah echoed that she has no time either and claimed that she is “making a sacrifice” despite drawing full-time salaries:
“I’m receiving about a third of what I should be getting, because I told them I could only afford to spend a third of my time for the company. It’s a sacrifice I had to make.”
PAP MPs and Ministers are among the richest in the world due to a legalised corruption to increase salaries ruled by Lee Hsien Loong. Each MP cost S$192,000/yr and a PAP Minister cost a minimum of S$1.2 million/yr. The total administration spending is one of the highest in the world, at S$53 million a year.