General News of Monday, 5 November 2012

Source: radioxyzonline.com

Dzirasa calls for probe into approved executive salaries

A former first Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ken Dzirasa has called for investigations into the discrepancy between the salaries recommended for the executive arm of government by the Awurama Addy Committee and what was approved by Parliament recently.

The House approved 12,000 Ghana cedis as salary for the President, 10,500 for the Vice President and between 8,000 and 9,000 for Ministers and their Deputies.

The President at the weekend directed the Finance Minister to put a hold on the payment of the new salaries and also asked Parliament to review the amounts to align them with the recommendations of the Presidential Committee.

Ken Dzirasa in an interview with XYZ News said the need for the alignment suggests Parliament approved different salaries from what the Committee recommended.

According to him, a probe would be necessary to unravel the reasons for the discrepancy.

“It is difficult to tell why the President has made the directive...that presupposes that what was recommended is not what was approved and if it is true then there is some grey area which needs to be investigated”.