4.3 Flexibility in Staffing Arrangement
Complete security of service tenure and assured promotion by seniority rule have been found to contribute to defiance of authority and selfaggran disement by municipal personnel. The colonial cadre system of personnel management in government is protectionist in nature and, therefore, inefficient, and not to be adopted in municipal management. There is a case for position classification for routine tasks, but at the management level a result-orientation is called for. Transferring executives and managerial staff from one municipality to another under the unified municipal personnel system is no happy solution for managing tension over authority and control. The virtues of administrative hierarchy should not be overemphasized lest the political authority of elected leadership is frontally challenged and municipal authority’s self-governing status is made redundant.