The 1962 Establishment Commission proposed a merit-based unified civil service

Evidence

Immediately after the budget the prime minister turned his attention to his top priority, reforming the state’s administrative apparatus to make it more efficient. The groundwork for this project started in early 1962 when a UN-supported commission (known as the Establishment Commission) was set up to harmonize the inherited divergent bureaucratic systems of Italian and British Somalilands and reform it into an effective apparatus. The commission concluded its extended tenure, and its report was approved by the cabinet under Prime Minister Sharmarkee. Because of the political pressure of the upcoming election, the report was set aside in 1963. The commission’s report proposed the creation of an orderly system in which every employee would have a personnel file. Administrative tables were developed for each ministry, and all staffing and promotions were to be based on qualifications and merit. Four grades (A, B, C, and D) were set up, and ranks within these positions were established. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 777

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Civil service reform was justified as instrument for social reform — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 231