Ministerial salaries in Singapore, already among the world’s highest, will go up from 15 October, boosting the prime minister’s annual pay by 64 per cent to S$3.6m (£2.1 m) from S$2.2 m (£1.3m).

Singapore pays its political leaders high salaries to attract talent and deter corruption, but the issue is thorny in the city-state, where the median wage worker makes about S$5,775 a month.

Prime minister Lawrence Wong acknowledged the sensitivity of the matter in a parliamentary speech, saying political salaries were a difficult and emotive topic.

“The sums involved are more than what most citizens earn, so I understand why Singaporeans scrutinise them closely and why many feel strongly about the matter,” Mr Wong ⁠said on Tuesday, adding that he would donate his increment to charity for the ​next ⁠five years.

But it was not just a matter of pay, he argued. “It is ultimately about whether Singapore will continue to have the quality of political leadership we need to take our country forward and to serve Singaporeans well in ⁠the years ahead.”

In comparison, the UK prime minister makes £170,171 a year while the US president earns £296,000, according to data from Political Salaries, a non-profit, which ranks the Singapore prime minister as the highest-paid world leader.

The dataset shows the Hong Kong chief executive is the second-highest earner globally with £532,000 annually, followed by the Swiss president at £448,000.

A Singapore junior minister with a salary of S$1.1m will get up to S$1.8m a year now, depending on performance and responsibilities. The increment for political office holders ‌will start with a one-off increase of up to 9 per cent, with subsequent adjustments based on performance, rather than an immediate jump.

By the end of this term of government, most junior ministers will earn about S$1.35m and those who do well can “move higher”, said Mr Wong.

Singapore last adjusted ministerial salaries in 2012, when ministers took a ⁠pay cut of 36 per cent to allay public discontent about how much they earned.

Lawmakers will debate the issue in the parliament on Thursday.

The announcement provoked strong reactions on social media, with some users on Reddit calling the pay adjustment “tone deaf” while others said that the hikes would be justified if ministers did a better job of navigating challenging times.

Opposition parties did not issue statements.

Mr Wong said that it was “easier politically” for him to leave things as they were but that “would not be the right thing to do” as salaries in the private sector, civil service, judicial service and public sector had moved higher since 2012.

After the 2012 pay cut, salaries were reviewed again in 2017 but the government chose not to adopt a recommendation to hike.

A second review due in 2023 was deferred until now because of economic uncertainty.

Singapore uses the salaries of the top 1,000 earners in the country as the benchmark for ministerial pay as their qualities and abilities “reflect the ⁠desired calibre of the people whom Singapore needs for good government”, the Public Service Division says on its website.

Referring to the benchmark, Chong Ja Ian, political scientist at the National University of Singapore, said: “Given rising income disparity, this could mean that ministers associate more with the very rich rather than the experiences of ordinary Singaporeans”.

Although cases of graft in government are rare in Singapore, they do exist. In a recent case, former transport minister S Iswaran was jailed in 2024 for obstructing justice and receiving over $300,000 worth of gifts.