Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera is smiling all the way to the bank with a 40% pay rise which makes him one of the highest paid leaders in Africa.
Chakwera, president of one of the poorest countries in the world with less than $400GDP per capita, gets more than the President of oil-rich west African giant Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari whose country’s GDP is over $2000.
Chakwera was elected president last year when he replaced former President Peter Mutharika. According to BBC news site, Mutharika was receiving $3600 (K2.8 million) per month ($43,000 / about K34.5 million per year) last year.
According to reports, Chakwera gets $74,000 (about K59 million) per year which is about K4.9 million per month.
A list compiled by Business Insider Africa using data from country websites and data from organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the CIA World Factbook, shows that Chakwera is the 14th highest paid president in Africa.
He beats Buhari from oil-rich Nigeria who gets $69,000 per year. The Malawi leader is just below Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana who pockets $76,000 per year wile is country as a GDP of $2,188.
Cameroonian President Paul Biya tops the list of African leaders with an annual salary of $620,976.
He is followed by Morocco’s King Mohammed and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, with an annual salary of $488,604 and $223,500, respectively.
“SERVANT LEADERSHIP” – Tonse Alliance model. So all the stories told recently now holds. These people only came into government to line their pockets with our taxes money. Surprisingly, they are rushing to enrich themselves without working. There is literally nothing they can show as their achievement. Malawians have got themselves to blame for ushering into government mediocre and novice hoodlums. The unfortunate thing is that the load we are carrying will be on us for the next 4 or so years. In Chichewa they say “Mwana akalirira m’nyanga ya nsatsi, n’semele imufotere yekha”, this is the situation, as a nation, we are in. But not everything is lost because no matter what, one day these people will also pack up and go. That is when their deeds will follow them to their villages in order for them to give an account of their sick crookedness.