YOURSAY 'It is imperative to link pay with performance and I look forward to MB Khalid finding ways to ensure productivity increase is an on-going deliverable.'

RM1,500 minimum wage for Selangor gov't firms

Anoymous: Well, that's how savings from a prudent management can go to help the people - a good government should plough back money to the rakyat.

That's the way to go as this shows that the Selangor government intends to share the wealth with its people, not like the BN which only wants to benefit its members and cronies.

Kingfisher: The Selangor government's efforts under MB Khalid Ibrahim to establish a meaningful minimum wage policy will be much applauded.

Khalid has to also effectively persuade the private sector in Selangor to provide a healthy living wage and other instruments of income support for its workers.

Both Selangor and Penang, given the state governments constructive attempts to arrest corruption and enhance productivity, are in a better position to boldly assume national leadership in establishing more fair/equitable wealth/social distribution benchmarks.

Thana55: With prudent budget management, more government funds become available and the minimum wage is one beneficiary.

Just a caution - it is imperative to link pay with performance and I look forward to Khalid and his team finding ways to ensure productivity increase is an on-going deliverable.

Well done, Khalid for an excellent stewardship of state resources and performance improvements since Pakatan Rakyat took over Selangor.

Ghkok: Excellent policy. Better still, the MB has stated clearly that the policy will be accompanied by steps to increase productivity. Real progress comes when productivity keep step with income.

The Selangor government has got it right unlike PM Najib Razak who wants a high-income nation but did not mention anything about improving productivity.

Pakatan Rakyat has very obviously outperformed BN.

Tpn: Syabas to the Selangor state government. Penang, Kedah and Kelantan should be next. We can forget about the other states as they are not well-run and depend on the federal government to survive. The four Pakatan-run states have indeed proven themselves.

ProtectMsia: I believe very soon BN-controlled states will come up with an even higher minimum wage. This has become a election gimmick to win votes.

Anyway RM1,500 minimum wage is not that high when compared to the private sector, but the retirement benefits and pensions are the real costs to the taxpayers.

Kgen: Yes, it may be an election gimmick. And yes, it may be to win favour among state employees. But the motives behind them are irrelevant.

What matters is that the policies are beneficial as a whole. There is nothing wrong with politicians competing for the people's support, this is the essence of democracy. Only a dictatorship does not have to compete for the people's favour.

Do you expect politicians not to play politics? Get real! Even in the most advanced democracies, politicians will time populist measures and goodies to benefit from elections.

AkuMelayu: The MB came with the good news first. But the bad news is that they will reduce their civil servants by 50 percent.

With this move, Pakatan in Selangor is doom in GE13. You satisfy 10 percent of your lowly-paid employees and frustrate the remaining 90 percent.

ONG: AkuMelayu, you know that our entire civil service can be reduced by 50 percent and actually end up functioning better if the remaining 50 percent can be trained to work like normal human workers.

Of course, the proper way to reduce the numbers is by natural attrition and not by dismissals. The savings from reduction of staff numbers can eventually be used to increase wages.

And we hope that in the case of male workers, any increase in wages will not be used to get a new and younger wife.

Wira: RM1,500 is not a lot of money. All workers in my company are paid at least twice that. If we don't pay competitively, they will leave.

I certainly hope government employees will be able to leave and get a better job elsewhere at will.

BN: Khalid abuses GLC assets to fund populist policies

Quigonbond: Selangor Opposition Leader Satim Diman alleges there is a lot of assets being auctioned off. Show us the list please, with commentary whether that is actually good decisions, and whether they are enough to pay off the minimum wage.

He also said Selangor haven't made good investments of late. Perhaps he should point out which are the bad investments. The Selangor government should quite easily come up with their list of investments and returns.

Let the debate begin, and I shall rub my hands in glee to see the opposition leader get trounced.

Armageddon: At least Khalid did not use the money to go to Disneyland with his family or go shopping in Australia.

Anonymous: Giving minimum wages to the rakyat is wrong, ya? But taking money from people is right, ya? This is Umno's logic?

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