During the budget speech earlier this year, finance minister Tito Mboweni declared that a salary freeze will be implemented for Members of Parliament and the executive.

Despite this, the budget documents suggest that the salaries of both deputy president David Mabuza and president Cyril Ramaphosa are actually higher than before.

The proposed salary for Ramaphosa is 8,3% higher than his 2018 allocation of R3,6 million, reports BusinessTech, despite the economic crisis that South Africa currently finds itself in.

That said, he does have the option of turning the salary down or donating a portion of it to charity. In 2018, Ramaphosa donated half of his salary to the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

To put things into perspective, let’s take a look at how his salary compares to the rest of the world.

In late 2018, jobs portal Adzuna used public sources, media reports and various research groups to look into the salaries of the 45 of the world’s leaders, including leading countries like the USA, UK and China.

Slotting in Ramaphosa’s expected salary for 2019, he remain one of the highest paid presidents in the world, earnings the twelfth-highest income among his peers.

If Ramaphosa were to donate half his salary as he did in 2018, even at R1.95 million, he would rank (27th), ahead of Mexico, Poland and Indonesia’s leaders.

According to the data, the world’s highest-paid leader remains Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, who has ‘suffered’ a pay freeze for the last few years. Despite this, he still earns well over R22 million a year.

Here’s the comprehensive list indicating how world leaders are paid:

He cracked the top 12, although I’m not sure he really needs the money. Maybe it’s some extra cash for him to throw at his favourite pastime, breeding cattle.

I feel like they should have included ‘president’ on that list of highest paying jobs in South Africa.

[source:businesstech]