ABSTRACT
However, even in Accra’s Municipal District the proportion of men and women in professional, executive, technical, administrative and managerial occupations is only about 7*7 per cent of the total employed population, while in Kumasi - Ghana’s second city - it is only about 6*2 per cent. Since it is this group who mainly operate the modern sector of the town’s economy and direct and provide its principal social services, these senior civil servants, owners and managers of business concerns, doctors and lawyers, and other professionals are generally well enough off. But, between this tiny section and the great mass of the urban population, differences in income are usually considerable and, not infrequently, extreme. In Accra, for example, not only are the civil servants paid at a rate between £700 and £2,500 per year compared to average earnings of £200 per annum, but they have a number of special perquisites and allowances. These include free medical care for man, wife and children, car loans, access to subsidized, partly furnished accom modation with garden, piped water and electricity, as well as
pensions on retirement. In other words, unlike the ordinary family, senior civil servants can afford the amenities of modern urban life, such as refrigerators, television sets, imported food and clothing. Moreover, not only are the salaries of this élite group four or more times higher than the average, but the gap between high and low incomes is not decreasing (Oppong, 1974). Again, in Blantyre, senior civil servants are paid nearly £3,000 per annum and managerial staff about £1,500 per annum, while for machinists in footwear and clothing factories and labourers in tobacco factories the range is respectively from £100 per annum and £150 per annum. Workers in printing and publishing earn on the average about £250 per annum, and teachers and middle-grade clerks about £300 per annum (National Statistical Office, Malawi, 1967 and 1969). In Lagos, among a sample of householders in 1959 the medium monthly income of traders and business men, clerks, self-employed skilled manual workers and labourers were respectively £20, £18, £15, £14 105·. Od. and £7. Professionals and civil servants together constituted rather less than 10 per cent of the population and had an average income of £472 (cf. UNECA, 1962, pp. 42-3).
