When there is no honour...but MONEY

When there is no honour...but MONEY The public service is all about public service, a service to the public. Or at least that was what it used to be. Throughout history, great people have stood up to serve country and people in the name of honour above all else. Today, in a new world when such values, including honesty, integrity, magnanimity, compassion, or just to make a difference in the lives of less able people, are now as good as outdated. All these have been subsumed by a new motivator called money. I have left out sacrifice from the list as sacrifice is no longer a factor. In our context I cannot see any sacrifice in the real sense of the word. What we are seeing is a new morality, a self serving morality, a morality of greed. We have all turned to become very practical people, and always ask what's in it for me. And more, to have more. Are our ministers suffering from being underpaid? Can $1m a year plus other perks that can or cannot be quantified be called underpaid? Yes and no. No when $1 a year can buy all the niceties in life and with a lot more to spare. I will be the first to support a payrise if a minister cannot afford to buy his $2 million private property after a 5 year term. But yes because other people are getting more. The main reason why there is this urgent call to double the $1 million is simply because relatively they are paid less. There will not be any call for a pay revision at this level if the other top earners are earning less. And with a formula that is built with all the biases to shoot to the sky, the $2 mil or $10 mil will never be enough. The formula will demand that the salary must continue to go up. When we replace honour with money, all our values change. We should not continue to teach our children values that are best described as 'admirable sentiments.' Let's get real. The moral values we are teaching our children in schools are impractical and smack of hypocrisy. They can no longer survive in a new world where self interest and well being comes first. We must not bring them up into a world that is totally different from their textbooks. They will suffer a culture shock when they realise that all the goodness that the teachers are teaching them is but a farce. The real world is not like that. We need to teach them a new set of values that befits the survival of the fittest. And yes, a return to the laws of the jungle.