"Will it be too much to hope, with the news that the recession is cutting deeper, that the ministers will at last take a cut in their salaries to empathise with the thousands of workers who have lost their jobs or have had to take wage cuts," Jeyaretnam said in a statement.

"Ministers do not have to take wage cuts to keep their jobs whereas workers are urged to take wage cuts just to keep earning," he said.

Jeyaretnam, a thorn in the side of the government when an opposition MP, was forced to quit his parliamentary seat last year when declared bankrupt, because he could not meet mounting debts resulting from losing defamation suits brought by ruling party stalwarts.

However, he has continued his criticism of government policies from the sidelines as the export-oriented Southeast Asian republic went into recession.

Although there were signs of a recovery in the middle of the year, growth is again faltering amid sluggishness in the global economy.

On Tuesday, the national wage body recommended that wages be frozen or cut to save jobs and help companies cope with the slowdown.

Earlier this week, the government trimmed its 2002 growth forecast to 2.0-2.5 percent from 3.0-4.0 percent after releasing fresh data showing export growth was stalling.

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