Dr Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah is a governance analyst and lecturer at the University of Ghana Business

Governance expert, Dr Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah, has justified the over GH¢62,000 monthly salaries paid to the heads of Independent Governance Bodies (IGBs), including the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) and the Auditor-General’s Department.

According to him, the GH¢62,000 is not excessive because at the current exchange rate, it is less than $5,000; adding that there are Ghanaians working for multinational organisations who are paid $6,000 and above.

Dr Otchere-Ankrah, who is a lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, also pointed out that paying the heads of the IGBs properly is important in combating the corruption menace.

“If somebody is paid GH¢62,000, when you use the current exchange rate, you will get about $4,600. There are people in this country who work for multinational companies who are paid $6,000 to $10,000 a month. So, for me, if you asked me whether the amount paid is too much, I would say it is okay.

“We should (sic) not be in a hurry to pay people less for them to say they are not comfortable. They will find other means of survival… My research tells me that one of the causes of corruption is poor working conditions. It does not mean that everybody who is paid well will not be corrupt,” he said in an interview with GhanaWeb on May 21, 2025.

“But if indeed that will reduce it, why not? GH¢62,000, if you look at the current economic conditions, is not such a big amount that we cannot afford,” he added.

The academic clarified that the remuneration of players of the men’s national football team, the Black Stars of Ghana is way more than what is being paid to the heads of the IGBs.

“How much are Black Stars players paid a month? If they play four matches in a year, how many hours do they prepare? When they come, we house them, we feed them, everything, and sometimes we give them $10,000. $10,000 in Ghana cedis is almost twice the salary we are talking about,” he said.

His remarks come after renowned US-based Ghanaian lawyer and scholar, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, shared some details of the salaries of heads of IGBs.

The details showed that the salaries of the Chairperson of the EC, the Auditor-General, the Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), and other IGB heads increased by more than 80% between 2020 and 2024.

The heads of the IGBs were earning over GH¢34,000 per month as salary in 2020. This increased by 4% to about GH¢36,000 in 2021.

In 2022, their salaries saw a further increase to over GH¢38,000, which then spiked to GH¢50,000 in 2023, accounting for an increase of about 30%.

The EC boss and the other heads of the IGBs saw their salaries increase again by about 23%, to over GH¢61,000 in 2024. Their salaries went up again by about 2% to over GH¢62,000 in 2024.

Kwaku Azar criticised the rate at which the salaries of the heads of the IGBs increased.

He said that while the heads of the independent bodies were enjoying salary increases, ordinary Ghanaians saw no growth in their wages during the same period.

BAI/VPO

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