Lawyer and Democracy and Development Fellow in Public Law and Justice at CDD-Ghana, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, widely known as Kwaku Azar has revealed the take home salaries of the Heads of Independent Government Bodies.
This includes the salaries of the Electoral Commission boss, the Attorney-General, the Commissioner on Human Rights And Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and other IGB.
He noted in an interview that the salaries of these Heads stood at Gh34,000 in 2020 but the erstwhile Akufo-Addo’s government increased it by more than 80%.
He explained in a Facebook post that the wages of these Heads were Gh34,000 in 2020, but the erstwhile Akufo-Addo’s administration raised it by more than 80% between that year and 2024.
He clarified that the heads of the IGBs received GHC 36,000 as a result of a 4% pay rise between 2020 and 2021.
Their salaries witness further increment in 2022 to about Ghc 38,000. But it further jumped to Ghc 50,000 which was about a 30 percent increase. Their salaries were increased to Ghc 61,000 in 2024 giving them a pay rise of about 23%.
Kwaku Azar bemoaned the rate at which the salaries of these Heads of Independent Government Bodies are being increased meanwhile the wages of ordinary Ghanaians saw very incremental growth.
“While citizens and pensioners were forced to ‘share the burden’ and ‘tighten belts,’ IGBs and surely other Article 71 beneficiaries were quietly awarded backdated raises”, he wrote.
In addition he indicated, “They get salary arrears, we get austerity. They get ‘adjusted emoluments’, we get emergency levies.
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the Public Services Commission (PSC), the National Media Commission (NMC), the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the Lands Commission, and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) are all part of the Independent Government Bodies.
