Nicaragua's Ortega slashes own salary

MANAGUA, Jan 23 (Reuters) Nicaragua's new leftist President Daniel Ortega has slashed his salary from around 8,000 dollars to 3,200 dollars a month as part of a government austerity plan.

Ortega, a former Marxist rebel who ruled in the 1980s and took office again on January 10, yesterday said he was cutting his own salary as well as those of ministers and senior civil servants after seeing the government wage bill.

''There are some salaries in there that are surprising,'' he told reporters.

Ortega has promised to reduce the poverty that has made Nicaragua one of the most underdeveloped countries in the Americas.

While not rich by the standards of Nicaragua's hugely wealthy landowning and business elite, Ortega has some assets. He declared to electoral authorities in the run up to last November's presidential election that he had 217,000 dollars, including a large house in the capital.

Some 80 per cent of Nicaraguans live on less than 2 dollars a day, according to the United Nations.

Ortega's wife, radical poet Rosario Murillo, works as the president's media advisor. Yesterday she said she receives no salary for doing the job.

Reuters DKA DB0850