The Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists

Conventional thinking has always shown concern over theillegitimate wealth that some heads of states help themselves to throughembezzlement and misuse of public funds and money laundering.

What this school of thought had overlooked is the questionof the ‘legitimate’ benefits these leaders take home – until recently when theKenyan parliament approved President Kibaki’s salary increment by 187 percentto make him the most highly paid civil servant in Kenya and probably one of thetop paid presidents in the world.

Ironically, as the Kenyan teachers’ uprising got underwayin January 2006 after government rejected their demands for salary increments,the Kenyan parliament would later in December of that year go ahead and approvethe hike in the president’s package from $10,000 to $27,000 a month – and thatis in addition to his ‘monthly retention allowance’ of $17,000. The president’srejection of the rather presumptuous reward did not come until February 2007.

Apart from Singapore, a country reputed to pay itspoliticians much better than any other country in the world, Kibaki’s newsalary would equal to that of the third highest paid head of a nation, that isthe Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd who earns an annual salary of$330,300 (or $27,500 a month).  

According to the Mango, a blogsite that deals withresearching and publishing information on top issues in the world, Singapore’sPrime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who earns five times more than the US presidentis believed to be the highest paid head of a government. He earns $2.6 millionannually (or approx. $230,000 a month).

Although Singapore’s GDP is lower than countries like the USor the UK where heads of state earn less than Singaporean politicians, it is reportedto have huge foreign reserves and many businesses and investments around theworld.

In light of this, you must be wondering about theremuneration for the ‘most powerful president in the world’ – the US president.That office is now held by Barack Obama and his salary at $400,000 a year (or $33,000per month) is ranked a meek second to the Singapore Prime Minister.

The UK Prime Minister (currently Gordon Brown) is thirdand gets $375,000 per annum (which is slightly over $31,000 per month). TheFrench President (Nicolas Sarkozy) comes fourth with a $346,000 a year package(or approx. $29,000 per month).

The German Chancellor (Angela Merkel) draws $318,000 perannum ($26,500 per month) and is ranked fifth on the list of the top earningheads of government in the world.

According to available information, Dmitry Medvedev earns$81,000 a year (or $6,750 per month) and is considered one of the least paidpresidents in Europe.

In justifying their approval of the whopping increase inKibaki’s remuneration, Members of Parliament said they were only trying tobring it at level with that of former President Daniel arap Moi who reportedly earnedmore than Kibaki while serving in that office.

Those who backed the Kibaki pay increment argued indefense of their position that they wanted to “give the respect and dignity thepresidency deserves."
Whether dignity can be found in the pay package or not is a different matter alltogether, but the question thrown at Kibaki and those in support of his payincrement was whether it was acceptable for a president of a poor nation likeKenya where 60 percent of citizens live below the international poverty line(i.e. on below $1-a-day).

In my view, another argument against such a presidential remunerationwould be; would it be in order to have such a high salary for a president andin the process risk making the office’s appeal to be about money rather thanabout service to one’s country?

Incidentally, the members of parliament who passed the payproposal are also said to be among the highest paid MPs in Africa and were alsostruggling to have their salaries and benefits exempted from taxation. Kenyancitizens, most of whom are civil servants and who are paid pittances, protestedagainst the increase but had teargas canisters thrown at them.

The fresh discussion of Kibaki’s salary comes with the revelationlast week that Prime Minister Raila Odinga has not earned his dues since hetook office over nine months ago despite the National Accord and ReconciliationAct that established the coalition government and put him at par with PresidentKibaki.

But there are more revelations in presidential business,no pun intended.

As you might expect, the US seems to do a good job keepingrecords generally, but also of presidential salaries in particular. Andaccording to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), President Bill Clinton wouldappear to be the lowest paid US president in history when inflation is factoredin. His salary that totalled $200,000 is worth less than $200,000 in today'sdollars. Seemingly lesser salaries of previous presidents have been worth agreat deal more when inflation is factored in. For examples, the CPI reportsthat the $25,000 annual presidential salary that began with George Washingtonwas worth an estimated $320,000 to $480,000 in today's dollars, though thatdropped to about $240,000 for James Madison in 1814 following the War of 1812,and to about $260,000 because of Civil War inflation for Abraham Lincoln in1865. During most of American history, however, CPI says, presidential salarieshad a great deal more "buying power" than Clinton's salary doestoday.

Nevertheless, the US Congress recognised that thepresident's pay had fallen in inflation and approved an adjustment: Thepresident who took office from January 20, 2001, started receiving a yearlysalary of $400,000.

While we are still on the matter of presidential recordsand salaries, anyone wondering what Kibaki’s peers in the region are takinghome is likely to be disappointed. Ugandan newspapers haven’t reported on thesubject much, not entirely out of negligence but perhaps because of theimplications such nosiness could bear for the journalists. President Musevenireacted furiously to a report in the Monitor newspaper in December thatrevealed that there was a huge disparity between the salaries of politicalappointees and what professional civil servants earned. Mind you, this was areport about other civil servants’ salaries – and not his salary. But here iswhat a furious President Museveni is quoted to have said:

“We did not spill a lot ofblood to turn our country into a laughing stock. When they see us quiet, theythink we are not military (men), they will be sorted out. All this indisciplinewill be sorted… we will only tolerate those informed public debates, focused onhow to improve national revenue collection and fighting corruption.”

Enough to make any journalist shake in his boots, huh? Ifit’s any pointer, however, we do know that in 2007 Ugandan MPs approved thepresident’s request for a newGulfstream presidential jet for £24m (Tsh46.6bn). The president told the MPsthat his £16m (Tsh31.1bn) plane bought seven years earlier was out of date.

So how is our own Jakaya Kikwete faring?  To be honest, we do not know – andprobably won’t know until, perhaps, parliament one day decides to discussincrements. When that happens, we will keep you posted.

On the other hand, the latest information regarding thesalary of a South African president is from a 2007 News-24 report that says inNovember of that year, Parliament increased then President Thabo Mbeki’s salaryby 8.3 percent bringing it to R1.27 million which would amount toTsh175,260,000 at today’s exchange rate (or approx $131,000) a year or $10,891a month.

News-24 reported on therevised Mbeki package, “It was far short of the original 57 percent increasefrom R1.18m to R1.89m recommended by the Independent Moseneke Commission, inits major review of salary packages and benefits for public office bearers.”

But going back to the Kibaki case, the Nation newspaper inKenya reported in December that he rejected the salary increment, perhapsbecause of the general resentment over it.

President Kibaki’s own statement on the matter read thathe had decided to turn down the offer after weighing the implications of hissalary increment under the country’s prevailing economic conditions.

Whichever way you see it – whether as a result of publicpressure or not – it is a decision that simply made sense and which many otherAfrican leaders need to keep in their scrapbooks for future reference.