Abstract:
Tanzania is implementing the decentralization by devolution policy (D by D) as a mechanism of facilitating quick development process through the involvement of people from grass root levels. One of the areas for decentralization is administrative decentralization whereby local government authorities are regarded as autonomous organs when it comes to the management of human resources from hiring to firing. However, recently from 2009, the government decided to establish a new centralized recruitment system, which recruits and allocates human resources on behalf of local government authorities and other government institutions. Several reasons have been advocated in favour of these changes like to facilitate uniformity and lack of meritocracy by the local government authorities. Using secondary data, this paper attempts to show how the establishment of centralized recruitment in Tanzania has acted as a
thorn towards the full attainment of administrative decentralization. The paper ends by
concluding that centralized recruitment has not only weakened local authorities in
implementing D by D policy but it has left a lacuna in the real meaning of D by D policy.
