SINGAPORE - There are 413 companies with more than $500 million in shareholders’ equity. About two in five, or 165, of these have chief executives or managing directors who are Singapore citizens.
Under the private-sector requirement for presidential hopefuls, a person must have served as chief executive of a company for at least three years, during which time the company must, on average, have at least $500 million in shareholders’ equity and made a profit after tax throughout. In a separate reply on Tuesday, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said that it is inappropriate to compare or impose the same requirements for both the private and the public sectors.
The eligibility criteria to contest a presidential election was amended in 2017 after a 2016 report from the Constitutional Commission, which made recommendations on aspects of the elected presidency, including the eligibility criteria. “This is unlike the private-sector service requirement, where there are financial performance indicators, such as profitability, that can serve as an objective assessment of how the applicants have performed in the companies with them at the helm,” said Mr Chan.The commission had acknowledged that the performance of public-sector organisations can be measured to some extent, such as by looking at how well the organisation performed in meeting its own targets.