Friday, September 02, 2005

Late to the Durai Party

We received an email at work today about the company matching donations made to the Red Cross for hurricane relief. Feeling really bad for the poor Katrina victims who've lost everything, I reached for my credit card to make a donation. I mean which Singaporean can resist a good bargain right? My donation will be worth even more!

I mentioned this to hubs who then made a jab at how I better be sure the CEO isn't getting overpaid like the infamous Durai! Curiosity stirred, I did some research and learned that the Red Cross CEO, Marsha Evans, is paid US$450k a year.

Ah hah, now I've heard some arguments that people are just jealous Durai is getting paid so well, that running a large organization like the NKF is really tough and you gotta pay the best man for the job and blah blah blah. But let's do the math here.

Durai
Salary: US$360k
NKF Program Expenses: US$4.8 million
% Salary: 8.4%

vs

Evans
Salary: US$450k
Red Cross Program Expenses: US$2.8 Billion
% Salary: 0.02%

Tadah!!! Confirm overpaid!! This Marsha woman is running an organization with expenditure of over USD$ 3 billion. And Durai?? Using the Red Cross as a rough guideline, he should only get SGD$137,600 a year. Sounds reasonable, it's more than 10k a month ok. Not like he will have to pimp out his kids or anything. Come to think of it, it's not really be his fault except for the lying part. Now who were the fucktards who decided to pay him that much in the first place???

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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matreshka said...

Ok ok... haha. Now that you made the comparison ... he was overpaid. But I still feel that NKF staff are truly much more passionate and hardworking abt their cause than other volunteer welfare organisations are. Whatever it is, I just hope that they don't lose that drive with the "takeover".

mini said...

yah i hope so too! :) the spirit of the orgnization shouldn't be judged based on one bad egg. they have a new CEO now so I think people will be more forgiving.

Anonymous said...

As far as I'm concerned it wasn't the amount Durai was paid - it was the secrecy, the lying, the 12 month bonus on top of his normal salary.

Heck, we pay our ministers a million. I'm darn sure that not all of them pull a million dollars worth of weight every year, but at least they're up front with the amount they get.h

mini said...

yup see your point about the lying. the minister's salary is another pet peeve of mine. it's just ridiculous! but if you can't beat them join them. perhaps I should brown nose and run for minister :p

matreshka said...

Check it out, MINI is a MINIster. LOL.

Think I've had too much corn in my diet lately.

For the amount ministers are getting paid, I don't think they really get to enjoy it a whole lot. They've got NO life! On top of their ministerial duties, they've got grassroots and other duties as well... imagine, a function or more almost every weekend, and on weeknights as well. And if there's a walkathon or some morning sports activity... you'll have to wake up at 6am on SUNDAY to say hi to residents and smile smile smile. (i'd much rather be in bed then) Worse of all, you have to be part of the action and be photographed doing warm-ups. Yikes.

Think their salary is just compensation for their time. It's probably more worth it being a CEO and at least they still have time to themselves. Guess the $$$ benefits mostly their family then! heheheh