US Companies To Disclose Pay Ratios in 2017

So has decided the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. There is some flexibility in the way this can be computed but you will have to agree that the thrust is good given how pay packets have become disconnected from actual performance and talent.

The Indian Ocean Tiger should jump on the bandwagon. ASAP.

Indian PM Worth 10.73 Crore

A crore is 10 million so we're talking 107.30 million Indian rupees here. Or Rs61.16 million. And he's not exactly the best paid PM in the world either.

At $38 million Bill Clinton is worth about 20 times more than Manmohan Singh.

How much is our PM worth again? And are we getting a big enough bang for the bucks we're paying him every month? What about Berenger?

Singapore's PM To Take 36% Pay Cut

As per the recommendation of the committee set up to review the salaries that are needed to buy Singapore the kind of leadership that will deliver the high performance that Singaporeans expect. Interesting concepts in there including a GDP bonus -- a maximum of 2 months salary if GDP growth is higher than 8% -- and attention to income distribution.

Will Ramgoolam deliver better outcomes if we pay him more?

Xavier Starting on Right Foot

Paying a full compensation for salaries up to Rs7,000 per month and a partial one up to Rs30,000 has been well received. And given that the minimum compensation paid will not be lower than Rs330 someone making Rs3,000/month will be getting an increment of 11% which is almost twice the inflation rate.

And as noticed by several people including Reaz Chuttoo of the Confederation des Travailleurs Du Secteur Prive (CTSP) the Government seems to be acknowledging that a minimum salary shouldn't be lower than Rs7,000. Besides SC/HSC fees are now paid by the State for family income not exceeding Rs14,500. That's another hint.

XLD's move also smashes a myth that a finance minister will have more consideration for the lower-income groups if he sported the ancestor of havaianas when he was a teenager. Especially after claiming to have read all the books on poverty.

Yep. Mr Chuttoo, reminded us in an interview that the salary threshold for receiving a full compensation was reduced by 40% from Rs4,500 to Rs2,700 in 2008. Which was apparently the year of the Bumper Crop... 

How Employers Can Pay The Smallest Compensation

By asking the Bank of Mauritius to target a level of inflation consistent with price stability -- that would be between 1-3%. They wouldn't be asking anything extraordinary because that's what already written in the law governing the business of the Central Bank. In fact, law-makers around the world have drafted similar provisions not because they like their fellow countrywomen too much but because they've noticed how higher inflation has a persistently naughty habit of throwing politicians out of office. Which would partly explain why we had 3 different Finance Ministers in the last 16 months.

Don't Kick'em When They're Down

So said Xavier-Luc Duval in Parliament this week. He was referring to the outrage that was sparked over the pay packet of the new CFO at MK. What the Minister seems to be forgetting is that an otherwise healthy and strategic company was kicked to the ground by an incompetent CEO and a Chairman that were handpicked by the Prime Minister and a board, which includes Ali Mansoor, that failed to uphold even the basic principles of corporate governance. And ironically that all of these people, save one, are still around to get at least another chance to kick MK while it's down.

Nevertheless, the compassion expressed by XLD this week puts him in a special position to understand the sufferings of the beautiful people of Mauritius who have been brutally thrown to the ground by Mansoor and Sithanen before being relentlessly kicked by these two bean-counters. The latest kick is the accounting gimmick of making us pay for the outlandish Rs3 billion of hedging losses sustained by the STC so that it doesn't show up in his deficit numbers.