Former President John Kufuor has waded into the public outrage regarding the huge monthly salary that was paid the former Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana COCOBOD.

According to him, the amount of money paid an individual is not an issue if his or her job brings huge returns to the state.

The disclosure of the whopping GHC70,000 monthly salary paid Dr. Stephen Opuni by the new board chairman of the COCOBOD Hackman Owusu-Agyeman has generated massive public outcry.

Mr. Owusu-Agyemang has subsequently disclosed that the new CEO of the state facility has agreed to be paid half of the salary paid his predecessor.

Commenting on the issue, Mr. Kufuor said the nation must not be quick to jump into conclusions over the matter.

“For me, it is absolutely unthinkable that the gross salary of the Chief Executive Officer should be in the neighborhood of GHC70,000 to GHC75,000 a month, and the net is about GHC55,000 to GHC57,000 a month. If you even discount this by 50 per cent, it would still be higher than anybody under Article 71 of the constitution.

“Corruption is high in the country because employers cheat employees in Ghana, so my point is that the fat salary given to someone should not be an issue for now, let’s investigate those issues to find out if the nation benefited from them or not. Then we can also find out if the salary was realistic or not, we should not jump into conclusions without proper investigations,” Kufuor told Accra-based Top FM.