State CEOs milk Ghana dry... highest paid earns GHS89,000/month

When the Prof. Dora Francisca Edu-Buandoh committee presented its report on new emoluments for Article 71 class of public sector workers in September 2016, breaking the news that Members of Parliament (MPs) were to receive GHS19,430 as monthly salaries, many were those who complained that it was too much for a country like Ghana.

The report was a task former President John Dramani Mahama, then Head of State, constituted the five-member committee to perform, as part of his constitutional mandate to review the emoluments of Article 71 public sector workers in the country.

Ghanaians criticised the committee hugely for also pegging the Speaker of Parliament and the First Gentleman of the land, the President, at GHS24,287 and GHS30,359 respectively.

But, little did we know that those figures were the tip of the iceberg and that many chief executive officers (CEOs) and other heads of state-owned organisations were receiving high and above what our politicians are receiving.

Information available to The Chronicle, and corroborated by Hackman Owusu Agyemang, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Cocoa Board, indicates that the gross monthly salary of the immediate past CEO, Stephen Kwabena Opuni, is GHS75,102.

This is aside, other facilities such as free accommodation, two vehicles, one sports utility vehicle (SUV) and one salon car, free electricity, water and telephone, a garden boy, security, driver, house help, as well as fuel are drawn from government sources.

Speaking on the Adom FM flagship programme, Dwaso Nsem, yesterday morning, Mr. Owusu Agyeman admitted that each of the three deputy directors of Cocobod takes home GHS42,000.

The three deputy directors also enjoy other allowances and side issues, including vehicles, free accommodation, electricity, water and telephone, a garden boy, gate man, driver, house help as well as fuel from government sources.

Furthermore, unconfirmed information available to The Chronicle shows that the salary of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana is GH?89,909, almost three times that of the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.

Also incredible is the monthly salary of the CEO of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), who is considered the second highest-paid head of a public institution in the country. His salary is GHS88,102.

Additionally, the paper received that the Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), the company which is currently on its knees, takes home a whopping GHS76,606.

The Chronicle further gathered that the Managing Director of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) receives GHS68,707 as his monthly salary, while the CEO of the National Investment Bank (NIB) enjoys GHS65,000 monthly.

Interestingly, while the Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) smiles home every month with a total of GHS62,000, his counterpart at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) is paid GHS56,000.

Ghanaians are worried, therefore, that when Awuah Darko was appointed to head the two state organisations concurrently, he was receiving GHS118,000 monthly, which is about four times what President Mahama was enjoying on a monthly basis.

At the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), the Managing Director receives GHS55,000 as monthly salary.

The Executive Director of the state-owned investigative body, Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), bags GHS44,909 monthly, so far the least paid among the heads of these state-owned organisations currently under consideration.

According to our information, almost all of these heads retire on their salaries, some as huge as 10 years of salaries of some workers in the country.