Civil Service is the operational arm of the government charged with the implementation and

administration of public policy. Civil servants are an engine who mobilizes resources of a country to the
direction of functional activities. However, this sector cannot play its decisive role in traditional and back
ward management systems unless it is updated and reformed to the changing circumstances. The
Ethiopian Civil Service Reform Programme is one effort by the government implemented to alleviate
some of the problems associated with low level of service delivery in the Ethiopian Civil Service which is
characterized by high inefficiency and ineffectiveness. The purpose of the reform is to reorient the Civil
Services into a dynamic, efficient and accountable apparatus for public service delivery built on the
ethos and values of integrity, impartiality and neutrality. This article proceeds to analyze the Ethiopian
Civil Service Reform with special emphasison the Failures of the Ethiopian civil service reform by
reviewing BamideleOlowu article and on the basis of data collected from secondary sources.

INTRODUCTION Civil services are those in which the preponderance of non-elected public sector jobs
are filled through a process of credentialing based on education, examination, or some other test of
merit; in which a career ladder exists and is accessed through regularized demonstration of credentials
of education, examination, tenure in office, or other form of assessing merit; in which tenure is secure
barring malfeasance in office; and in which movement in and out (through retirement, for example) is
regulated and compensated(Grindle and Hilderbrand,1995). Civil service is a neutral body accountable
to the citizenry and should not be used, in any manner, as a surrogate for political will of ruling parties. It
is a vehicle through which public policies get implemented for the development of the society as a
whole. Historically, many governments have used the civil service to patronize the politics through the
appointment of political affiliates in to political offices. It is apparent that efficient and effective civil
service sector that plays a major role for the development of a nation in all dimensions. In other words,
civil servants are an engine who mobilizes resources of a country to the direction of functional activities.
However, this sector cannot play its decisive role in traditional and back ward management systems
unless it is updated and reformed to the changing circumstances. In most developing countries including
Ethiopia, traditional management techniques play immense ingredient that influence working cultures
almost in all sectors. The civil service is one of the agents of development in any nation. The
transformation of any society or system depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of the civil service,
particularly in developing societies. Minding these different African countries has tried to reform their
civil service. The Ethiopian civil service like other African countries has been in the process of major
structural change since 1992. The government has initiated comprehensive civil service reform program
primarily aimed at improving service delivery as well as in improving the efficiency and competence of
officials and workers in the public sector. Even though in some areas and contexts, the reform has been
succeeded but as many developing countries the Ethiopian civil service reform has its own challenges
and

Results and Analysis

Public management as a discipline acknowledges the knowledge and noble contributions of civil
servants to developmentand intensification of public interest. In a contrary, the civil service is often
blamed for its insufficient response to changes in the priorities of political leadership. According to
Peters and Pierre (2004), the civil service systems have some level of political involvement by upholding
the merit foundation. This notion is observed in Ethiopia in general and in Tigray Region in particular. In
Tigray,as clearly stated in the Proclamationfor Disclosure and Registration of Assets No. 198/2011, both
political appointment at the top and the merit system have a legal foundation. The political appointment
in the region helps the government of the day to translate policies created by elected officials into
agency specific details so that they can be implemented. In addition to that, they are mandated to
oversee the execution of policy to ensure that the results match the expected outcomes. As affirmed by
Pashaj (2010), politically appointed officials assist to secure the chain of accountability.

INTRODUCTION

The Civil Service Commission is responsible for managing the employment of civil servants. Its
main functions are the management of standards of government ministries, the absorption and
appointment of employees, promoting civil servants their welfare. Accounts of administrative
reform in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa are relatively scarce, and Ethiopia is no
exception. However, within the wider context of administrative reform in Africa, the reform of
public bureaucracies is central to the modernization of public service delivery. In Africa,
governance is largely typified by expansion, patronage, and authoritarian rule. Bureaucratic
rationality is also compromised by the high degree of centralization in decision making within
the

political executive. However, by the end of the 1980s, a new breed of civil servant began to
emerge within a changing political context that included greater demands for public sector
efficiency, institutional capacity and wider democratization. Therefore, with a view to realize
comprehensive state transformation` and ` total system overhaul` and in line with
recommendations forwarded by the World Bank, as in the case of African countries in general,
the Ethiopian government has embarked on multiple public administration reforms from the
early 1990s. Moreover, in 2001, extensive government reorganization was undertaken along with
the launch of a National Capacity Building Program (NCBP), which gave new impetus to the
Civil Service Reform Program (CSRP). The first is that the market based New Public
Management (NPM) reform movement has universal applicability, and secondly, micro-
management techniques, such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR) can be implemented in
any organization, irrespective of its sectoral or cultural context. In essence, BPR is a radical
concept in terms of improving organizational effectiveness, and implementation in the public
sector of developed countries has been patchy at best. This is partly due its emphasis on
restructuring, usually resulting in a horizontal view of organizational processes that deliver
services to users. Clearly, this has enormous implications for restructuring in bureaucratic and
political environments. However, it’s acknowledged originators;

Hammer and Champy (1993: 32) define BPR as ‘the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign
of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in…performance’. The acceptance of
BPR by public sector reformers forms part of a package of wider NPM reforms promoted by the
international organizations; ‘much of the current public reform is an effort to meet society’s
needs by providing better, faster and more services from government. In Ethiopia also civil
service change or reform is needed to provide good services for public service organizations.