[ 2017-03-29 ]

Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, Chairman of Ghana Cocoa Board

GHS75k Opuni salary saga: Attacking me unfair! – Hackman
Chairman of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Hackman
Owusu-Agyemang, has said criticisms levelled
against him following his public announcement of
the salary of the state body’s immediate past
Chief Executive Officer, Dr Stephen Opuni, is
unfair.

According to him, the salaries of Article 71
office holders, including that of the COCOBDO CEO,
the president and all his ministers, Members of
Parliament, and others are already in the public
domain, therefore, it was not out of place for him
to have publicly indicated how much Dr Opuni was
earning as salary.

Mr Owusu-Agyemang, had said the GHS75,000 salary
of Dr Opuni was “unthinkable” and the new
board would review it.

“For me, it is absolutely unthinkable that the
gross salary of the Chief Executive Officer should
be in the neighbourhood of GHS 70,000 to GHS
75,000 a month, and the net is about GHS 55,000 to
GHS57,000 a month. If you even discount this by 50
per cent, it would still be higher than anybody
under Article 71 of the constitution,” he told
Accra-based Citi FM.

He wondered why cocoa farmers were not benefitting
from the proceeds of their work but managers were
rather enriching themselves with the sweat of
farmers.

But in a subsequent interview with Chief Jerry
Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM on
Wednesday 29 March, Mr Owusu-Agyemang said he had
received criticism from a section of the Ghanaian
public for putting out somebody’s salary, but
the flak against him was not fair.

“People called me asking me why I put
somebody’s salary in the public domain but I
explained that even the salary of the president is
in the public domain. Everybody knows how much
Article 71 holders are taking as salaries. How
much John Mahama, Kufuor, and the rest took as
salaries are all in the public domain. These are
matters of public record and so it is no issue to
attract the criticisms,” he said.

Source - classfmonline.com

... go Back