Being a head of state is the highest position that a person can serve during their lifetime. This position not only comes with many responsibilities, privileges, powers as well as a fat bank account. Politics is quite a lucrative career such that many people are opting to deviate from their other careers to venture into politics. The sad truth is that most citizens living in the highest paid African presidents’ countries live below two dollars per day.
Politicians’ prime objective should be to selflessly serve and be accountable to the society. But in Africa, a different picture has been painted where people venture into politics as a get rich quick scheme. The moment they get into power, they become accountable only to themselves. The following article will shed some light on some of the most paid presidents in Africa and how much they earn in dollars.
African heads of governments are among the highest paid in the world despite the continent’s many challenges.
Jacob Zuma, South African president is the highest paid in the continent earning $272 000 per year, he was ranked fourth in the world. Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame is ranked tenth, earning only $85 000 per year.
In Africa, Mr Magufuli’s pay is less than a tenth of that of his Cameroonian counterpart and just about a quarter that of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta.Mr Kenyatta earns Sh1.4 million
1. Cameroon: Paul Biya $610,000 per year
The salary of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya is probably the highest among African presidents. Biya, who has been the leader of the country since 1982 and has been dubbed “one of the world’s worst dictators”, is believed to be earn 359m Central African CFA francs $610,000. Africa Review compared his salary to what an average Cameroonian earns and found the leader’s annual income is about 229 times more than the average salary. In 2009, the leader sparked outrage after reports emerged of a 20-day holiday in France where he spent an average of $35,000 a day, totaling $700,000.
2. Mohammed VI, Morocco: $460,000 per year
Formerly dubbed as the “king of the poor” for his attempts to lift Moroccans out of poverty when he took power in 1999, Mohammed VI earns around 68 times more than an average Moroccan citizen and his yearly salary is of MAD 4.6m – $412,000
In 2004, privately owned Moroccan magazine Tel Quel took the unprecedented step of disclosing the leader’s salary, claiming Mohammed VI earned around $38,600 a month, less then a typical company director. According to this estimate, he would earn $463,000 a year.
The following year, Tel Quel published the average yearly spending of the royal family. According to the report, Mohammed VI’s expenses cost Moroccan taxpayers 160 million dollars a year.
The same year, Tel Quel’s founder and then editor-in-chief Ahmed Benchemsi and one of the magazine’s journalist, Karim Boukhari, were convicted on charges of defamation. Since it was founded, the magazine has been subjected to pressure by the Moroccan government regarding its reports.
3. South Africa: Jacob Zuma $272 000 per year
Not only is Jacob Zuma one of the most paid presidents in Africa, but also among the worlds top ten highest paid presidents. He earns a whopping 272,000 dollars every year. Being the head of state has granted him so many powers such that in the year 2012, this South African president approved of a 5.5 percent salary increment for top public servants such as himself and others in the said category.
He is quite a wealthy man since he has been the president since 2009 and was re-elected in the 2014 election. Zuma is currently the top-earning president in the African continent.
4. Alegria: Abdelaziz Boufika $168 000 per year
Abdelaziz Boufika is a Moroccan-born Algerian politician who became president of Algeria in 1999. Boufika is the second highest paid president in Africa.
5. Kenya: Uhuru Kenyatta $132 000 per year
Uhuru Kenyatta is the 4th and current President of Kenya, in office since 2013. He is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president. Kenyatta is the third highest paid president in the continent. In 2014 he took a salary cut and decreased his salary from $14 000 per month to $11 000.
6. Comoros: Azali Assoumani $115 000 per year
President of one of the smallest country in Africa, Assoumani has been in office since 2016. Aged 57, Assoumani first came to power in 1999 after ousting acting President Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde in a coup.
7. Namibia: Hage Geingoba $110 000 per year
Hage Geingoba has been in office since 21 March 2015, he is the third and the current President of Namibia. He gained a PhD in 2004 from the University of Leeds, in Britain. The president, who shares executive power with the cabinet, is limited to two five-year terms.
8. Republic of Congo: Danis Nguesso $110 000 per year
Nguesso has been the president of the Republic of the Congo since 1997; he was previously President from 1979 to 1992. He was marked for prominence and received military training in Algeria and at Saint Maixent, France before returning to join Congo’s elite paratroop regiment.
9. Libya: Ali Zeidan $105 000 per year
The former Prime Minister of Libya. He was appointed by the General National Congress on 14 October 2012, and took office on 14 November after Congress approved his cabinet nominees. Zeidan was ousted by the parliament committee and fled from Libya on 14 March 2014.
10. Ivory Coast: Alassane Dramane Ouattara $100 000 per year
With a reputation as a hard-worker, keen on transparency and good governance, Alassane Dramane Ouattara is an economist by profession. Ouattara is the fifth president of Ivory Coast and has been president since 2011.
11. Libera: Ellen Johnson $90 000 per year
Liberian politician who has served as the 24th and current President of Liberia since 2006. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa. She is the second least paid president in the continent. Johnson has been the president of Libya for 12 years.
12. Rwanda: Paul Kagame $85 000 per year
Paul Kagame is the sixth and current President of Rwanda having taken office in 2000 when his predecessor, Pasteur Bizimungu, resigned. At 53 years old, the president of Rwanda is the least paid in the continent.
However, other African leaders such as Hage Geingob of Namibia, Mr Buhari of Nigeria, Abdel Fattah of Egypt have all taken pay cuts of up to 50 per cent and directed the money be used to fund other needy sectors of their economies.
In Kenya, Mr Kenyatta promised a 20 per cent pay reduction for him and 10 per cent for his Cabinet in a bid to lower the country’s “unsustainable wage bill”.
However, it still remains unclear if the pay reduction were effected.
