Appiah Ofori commends Prez Mahama for rejecting Ministers’ “abnormal pay”

Anti-graft campaigner, P C Appiah Ofori has commended President Mahama for rejecting the newly approved salaries for the executive arm of government.

PC Appiah Ofori who is also MP for Asikuma Odobeng Brakwa believes the President’s action has averted what could have been a demand for salary increases in the public sector and possibly a national crisis.

Parliament last week approved a monthly salary of 12,000 cedis for the President; ten thousand five hundred cedis for his vice and between 8,000 and 9,000 cedis for ministers and their deputies.

But the move was heavily criticized by a cross section of the public and some civil society groups.

In a statement issued over the weekend President Mahama asked parliament to consider a review of the emoluments to ensure it was aligned more realistically with the original recommendations of the Professor Ewurama Addy Committee.

Mr Appiah Ofori, who stormed out of a closed door meeting by Parliament in protest of the figures proposed, told JOYNEWS he was relieved.

He said he had intended to write to the president to remind him about the recommendations of the Chinery-Hesse report which proposed that Ministers should be paid a gross salary of Ghc 3,200.

Appiah Ofori expressed appreciation to President Mahama for acting to avert “a likely national crisis which would have resulted from this abnormal increase”.