Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has indicated that between 2020 to 2021, the salaries of presidential staffers increased from GH¢136.2m to GH¢823.8m.
According to him, this is attributable to the increase in the creation of “amorphous positions” at the Office of Government Machinery.
In a post on his social media timeline, the MP for North Tongu, said, “it is significant to observe from the 2021 Budget Statement — the year most of these amorphous positions were created at the Office of Government Machinery, that their Wages and Salaries shot up astronomically to GH¢823.8million from just GH¢136.2million in 2020 (an increment by a staggering 508.4%).”
He added, “Compared with that of the entire Parliamentary Service (including non-parliamentarians), GH¢201.1million was budgeted in 2021 from GH¢140.4million in 2020 (representing an increase of 43.2%). Placed in perspective, the OGM salary increase by an additional GH¢687.6million in one year (508.4%) is more than the GH¢672million needed to pay NABCo workers for an entire year (see page 241 of 2021 Budget).”
Ablakwa in an earlier statement indicated that staffers at the Office of the President have increased from 934 in 2020 to 995 in 2021. This meant that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had made 61 new appointments in a space of one year.
In scrutinizing the report, the Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Parliament said, the President had created a new office, Church Relations Manager, which in his opinion was ‘very unconventional.’
The Church Relations Manager is under the headship of one Rev. Ebenezer Saaka Ameyaw.
Aside from that, Ablakwa observed that there is also a position known as ‘Diaspora Church Mobilization’ which has, Fr. Nana K. Ellis, as the head.
The MP noted that these new portfolios for Rev. Ebenezer Saaka Ameyaw and Fr. Nana K. Ellis by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo “smacks of an unholy mission to mix politics and the pulpit.”
