Yε bε dii bi kε kε! HUGE PAY RISE AT THE CASTLE
Report by Daniel Nonor
At a time when there is public outcry at the atrocious pay increments awarded to President John Dramani Mahama and his non-performing ministers, it has emerged that cronies of this administration, euphemistically referred to as government appointees at the Presidency, have received major boosts in their incomes, on the blind side of Ghanaians.
Approval for the 20% pay rise for 29 political appointees is contained in a letter dated May 30, 2012, by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffour, under the subject: SALARY INCREASE FOR POLITICAL APPIONTEES IN THE PRESIDENCY, and addressed to the Controller and Accountant General’s Department.
It read: “Approval is hereby given for the attached salary levels marked ‘Appendix A’, which incorporates a twenty percent (20%) salary increase, to be used to effect the payment of salaries of the political appointees in the presidency.”
The letter, which also instructed the Accountant General’s Department to treat the implementation of the directive as ‘urgent’, instructed that the increases should take effect from January 1, 2012.
“The effective date of implementation is 1st January, 2012. Please treat as urgent,” the Finance Minister instructed.
Interesting additions to the list of beneficiaries are the two brothers of the late President John Atta Mills, namely Samuel Atta Mills and Dr. Cadman Dufu Atta Mills, who work as political appointees at the Presidency.
A copy of the letter and the list of beneficiaries, which is in the possession of The Chronicle, indicate that appointees such as Mr. Samuel K. Anyidoho, Mr. Stanislav Xoese Dogbe and Mr. Edwin Nii Lantey Vanderpuye had their pay increased from GH¢5,305.00 to GH¢6,366.00 respectively.
This pay rise comes on the heels of current seething anger by most Ghanaians, after atrocious sums amounting to over a whopping GH¢1,115.2 billion were approved by Parliament as the total pay package for the President, Ministers of State, and Members of Parliament (MPs), with retrospective effect from 2009.
By the new pay structure, the President is taking GH¢12,000, while members of Parliament and ministers bag between GH¢7,800 and GH¢7,200.
Although the beneficiaries of this juicy arrangement have vehemently defended the pay rise, they have not escaped the anger of the ordinary Ghanaian, who queues in the scorching sun to vote them into power.
The President, John Dramani Mahama, and members of Parliament have received flak from civil, public and society organisations, some of which have described the increments as “wicked” and “atrocious”.
The ruling government has also come under heavy criticism for milking the state dry, when the majority of Ghanaians live in abject poverty, while others don’t have decent jobs to afford even two square meals a day.
With lots of cash, free cars, pay rise, huge donations from state funds for birthday celebrations taking centre stage, with just three days to elections, political analysts and economists are wondering what happened to the prudent spending of the NDC government, which was espoused by the late President John Evans Atta Mills.
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