The President doesn't earn $192,000 per month. How much does he earn?

State House has refuted claims that President Jakaya Kikwete earns $US192,000 as salary per month. I thought the statement would say how much he actually earns. It did not. That, apparently, is within the legal protection enjoyed by public servants that maintains that salaries of public servants is confidential information.

Despite that, I note that the press release mentions that the newspaper that published the erroneous information could have used proper channels to obtain accurate information. And that is a change from the past when it appeared to me that any citizen inquiring about a public official's pay would have been told to find some other work to do.

Opposition presidential candidate Edward Lowassa is promising to slash the presidential salary considerably if elected in October's general elections although I do not know whether voters should read more politics than resolve in his promise.

I thought I should write something about my attitude on the secrecy surrounding these salaries but realised I had already written about it in 2013. Here's what I wrote then. What is your opinion?