{"id":116290,"date":"2016-03-10T20:00:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T18:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=116290"},"modified":"2016-03-11T06:44:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T04:44:56","slug":"zumas-salary-vs-global-presidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/116290\/zumas-salary-vs-global-presidents\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuma’s salary vs global presidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Jacob Zuma’s salary increase for 2016 was approved by National Assembly on Thursday (10 March), taking his total pay up to R2.87 million.<\/p>\n

Zuma’s increase is in line with recommendations made by the\u00a0Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers, which stated the president should get a 5% rise.<\/p>\n

The Commission also recommended a 6% to 8% increase for other public offices, however, Zuma cut this down to 4.4%, taking into account the recent economic turmoil in the country.<\/p>\n

When compared to other presidents globally, Zuma’s salary is high –\u00a0 amounting to R7,863 per day.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Barack Obama – leader of the the richest country in the world, the USA – is paid a flat rate of $400,000 (R6.2 million in at current exchange rates), but that’s a country with \u00a0six times the population and eight times the punch in terms of GDP per capita.<\/p>\n

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is widely known to command the highest salary of any politician in the world.<\/p>\n

The politician has taken several pay cuts over the years, but still earns a reported $1.7 million a year – far higher than any other official world leader.<\/p>\n

Here are a few world leaders, and how Zuma’s latest increase compares to publicly available – official – data.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Leader<\/th>\nCountry<\/th>\nSalary (US$)<\/th>\nSalary (ZAR)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Lee Hsien Loong<\/td>\nSingapore<\/td>\n$1.7 million<\/td>\nR26 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Barack Obama<\/td>\nUnited States<\/td>\n$400 000<\/td>\nR6.2 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Malcolm Turnbull<\/td>\nAustralia<\/td>\n$397 800<\/td>\nR6.1 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Justin Trudeau<\/td>\nCanada<\/td>\n$252 000<\/td>\nR3.9 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Angela Merkel<\/td>\nGermany<\/td>\n$234 400<\/td>\nR3.7 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
David Cameron<\/td>\nUK<\/td>\n$214 800<\/td>\nR3.3\u00a0million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Shinzo Abe<\/td>\nJapan<\/td>\n$202 700<\/td>\nR3.1 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Francois Hollande<\/td>\nFrance<\/td>\n$194 300<\/td>\nR3.0 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jacob Zuma<\/strong><\/td>\nSouth Africa<\/strong><\/td>\n$188 000<\/strong><\/td>\nR2.9 million<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vladamir Putin<\/td>\nRussia<\/td>\n$125 000<\/td>\nR2.5 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dilma Rousseff<\/td>\nBrazil<\/td>\n$120 000<\/td>\nR2.1 million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pranab Mukherjee<\/td>\nIndia<\/td>\n$30 300<\/td>\nR462 500<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Notably, as the figures above are converted from dollar terms (at USD 1 = \u00a0ZAR 15.26) Zuma’s “rank” among world leaders is lessened somewhat due to the rand weakness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Data published in September 2015, by media house, Africa Review, showed that president Zuma was the third-highest paid leader on the African continent.<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0due to the rand weakness vs the dollar, the dollar value of Zuma’s salary (and presumably the other salaries) listed below are now much lower.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Africa’s highest paid presidents<\/h3>\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/th>\nPresident<\/th>\nCountry<\/th>\nSalary (US$)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nPaul Biya<\/td>\nCameroon<\/td>\n610 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nKing Mohammed VI<\/td>\nMorocco<\/td>\n480 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/strong><\/td>\nJacob Zuma<\/strong><\/td>\nSouth Africa<\/strong><\/td>\n272 000<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nJakaya Kikwete<\/td>\nTanzania<\/td>\n192 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nAbdel Aziz Bouteflika<\/td>\nAlgeria<\/td>\n168 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nTeodoro Nguema<\/td>\nEquatorial Guinea<\/td>\n150 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nUhuru Kenyatta<\/td>\nKenya<\/td>\n132 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nIkililou Dhonine<\/td>\nComoros<\/td>\n115 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nDenis Sassou Nguesso<\/td>\nCongo Republic<\/td>\n110 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nHage Geingob<\/td>\nNamibia<\/td>\n110 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11<\/td>\nRobert Mugabe<\/td>\nZimbabwe<\/td>\n108 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12<\/td>\nAmeenah Gurib Fakim<\/td>\nMauritius<\/td>\n104 838<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13<\/td>\nAlassane Outtara<\/td>\nCote D’Ivoire<\/td>\n100 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14<\/td>\nEllen Johnson Sirleaf<\/td>\nLiberia<\/td>\n90 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
15<\/td>\nPaul Kagame<\/td>\nRwanda<\/td>\n85 000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

More on president Zuma<\/p>\n

\n

Zuma’s salary vs other world leaders – BusinessTech<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

President salaries: Zuma vs Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Zuma increases government salaries ahead of budget speech<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Jacob Zuma’s salary increase for the year was approved by National Assembly on Thursday, taking his total pay up to R2.87 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,83,4564],"class_list":["post-116290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-jacob-zuma","tag-salary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116290"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116330,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116290\/revisions\/116330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}