Mahama, ministers lose over Ghc700,000 in 10% pay cut

As part of austerity measures taken by government to address the challenges of Ghanaians, President John Mahama, his Vice, Kwesi Amissah-Arthur and all government appointees would have a 10 percent salary cut for the year 2014, the Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper has said.

Presenting the government’s 2014 Budget Statement and Economic Policy under the theme, “Rising to the Challenge: Re-aligning the Budget to meet Key National Priorities,” Tuesday, Mr. Terkper stated that “broad policy initiatives in this budget have been designed to enable us consolidate our middle income status and deal with the new challenges of financing our development.”

The new austere government policy means that the president, his vice and ministers are sacrificing a whopping over Ghc700,000.00 (over 7 billion old cedis) from their hard-earned salaries for development projects to better the lives of Ghanaians.

Currently, the president takes an estimated Ghc12,000.00 while his vice takes Ghc10,500.00 a month. The 10 percent salary cut for the year means, the president and his vice will lose Ghc14,400.00 and 12,600.00 respectively; the total being Ghc27,000.00.

With the about 80 ministers taking home an estimated amount of Ghc8,000.00 each in a month, the ministers will also be losing some Ghc9,600.00 each in a year; the total being about Ghc768,000.00 that will be channeled into a special account for development projects.

Mr. Terkper added that the strategy for accelerated economic growth is putting people first, building a strong and resilient economy, expanding infrastructure and ensuring transparent and accountable governance.

“This will be achieved through increased investments in infrastructure, agriculture modernization, manufacturing based on agro-industrialization, Science, Technology and Innovation and targeted Exploitation of Ghana’s natural resources, particularly, minerals, oil and gas,” he added.