The Colonial Legacy of Salary Structures in Anglophone Africa

Abstract

The distribution of personal incomes in contemporary African societies is powerfully influenced by public-sector salary and wage structures. Even where capitalist and hence pro private-enterprise development strategies have been openly pursued, as in Kenya, the public service accounts for over 40 per cent of total employment in the modern sector. Where more statist, quasi-socialist strategies have been abopted, as in Ghana and Tanzania, this percentage rises to over 70. Clearly, then, any discussion of income distribution and the potential rôle of incomes policy hinges on an adequate understanding of the processes that determine remuneration in the public sector. And this in turn requires a comprehensive historical analysis of the political economy of each society – in particular, the process of class formation and the rôle of the state.