A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that Prime Minister Dato Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob is set to get another special adviser despite the backlash on their necessity.
As of now, 5 special advisers have been hired, costing RM136,136 per month. Should they serve the full two-years, they are expected to cost taxpayers a total of RM3.267 million.
That is certainly a huge amount for advisers alone, and you might wonder if the previous Prime Ministers in our country had ever spent this much for their advisers, reported BFM News.
Here’s a list of some of the previous PMs and the costs involved to pay their advisers.
1.Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin
- Number of advisers : 4
Each advisers was paid RM27,227.20 per month, except for one adviser who was paid RM18,204.67 per month. In total, an amount of RM99,886.27 was paid to Muhyiddin’s advisers every month.
2. Tun Mahathir Mohammad
- Number of advisers : 4
When Tun M made a comeback with Pakatan Harapan as the government, he had 4 advisers with a total of RM46,853 per month. One of the advisers, Daim Zainuddin, did not draw any salary during Tun M’s tenure.
When he was the 4th PM (1981 until 2003), he only had 1 special adviser during the 22 years, who received a monthly pay of RM17,820.
3. Dato Seri Najib Razak
- Number of advisers: 16
Najib Razak is perhaps the only PM in our country with the most advisers hired. His significantly high number of advisers had to do with his long run as the PM – 9 years, from 2009 until 2018.
The advisers served at different timelines but at the peak of 2018, Najib had 10 active special advisers and their salaries combined costed RM244,791.65 every month.
4. Ahmad Abdullah Badawi
- Number of adviser : 1
The pre-decessor of Najib Razak, he only had 1 single adviser throughout his whole tenure and it only costed RM17,820 monthly to pay the adviser.
While every PMs in the past had different numbers of advisers, some of the rakyat are still pondering on the necessity on the need of more advisers for the current government.
Also read: PM To Get Another RM50k Special Adviser Despite Recent Backlash On Their Necessity
