Under fire AusPost boss Ahmed Fahour – who earns ten times more than the prime minister – would receive a super payout if he retires today of $8.4m, and if he leaves when he is 60 it will have risen to $14.4m.

The revelation of the unprecedented payout coming Fahour’s way has left print and mailing house bosses crying into their beers, with one summing up the feeling in the industry, describing it as ‘a farce’.

The super-sized super payout comes as Fahour joined AusPost in 2010, two years before the defined benefits scheme – designed to give ordinary posties earning $50,000 a year a lump sum after 30 years employment – was altered

Fahour and his extensive PR team fought tooth and nail to keep his $5.6m salary package confidential, even though he is a public servant paid by the taxpayer, but the latest revelations about his incredible super payout will further damage his standing, which in the print industry at least is already at rock bottom thanks to his strategy of reducing services and spiking prices for mail.

[Related: AusPost CEO earned $5.6m last year]

As CEO of AusPost Fahour earns what many see as a ludicrous ten times more than the head comparable post bosses around the world, the US Postal Service and the Canada Post head honchoes are both on slightly above $500,000pa, and in the case of the US chief at least can claim to be running a somewhat bigger organisation than the Australian operation.

Quite why the Australian CEO earns ten times more has not been satisfactorily explained, nor why another five AusPost executives earn between two and half and three and half times that of the head of US postal Service.

Fahour is Australia’s highest paid public servant, his $5.6m salary dwarfing that of prime minister Malcolm Turbull’s $530,000pa. Turnbull called Fahour’s package ‘very high’.

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