The purpose of this study is to assess the status of merit based recruitment and the dimension of elitism in thernEthiopian Civil Service system and their impacts on organizational performance in the case of Ministry of CivilrnService, Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. In light of this, usingrnqualitative approach, primary data collected through questionnaires administered and interviews conducted withrnsecondary data from government documents, reports and proclamations reviews were used to make the paper sound.rnThis study is limited to status of meritocracy and dimensions of elitism in the selected 3(three) federal ministries. Inrnthese ministry organizations, there are about 749 employees with the exception of security personnel, drivers andrnjanitors. These are selected as target population for the study and using simple random sampling, 75 people (10% ofrnthe population) were selected to fill descriptive questionnaires [out of which only 69(92%) of them completed andrnreturned these questionnaires]. Moreover using purposive non-probability sampling, 8 respondents of top managementrnofficials from the selected federal ministries and 8 key informants from political parties, scholars and practitioners inrnthe civil service were conducted for interview. The collected data has been analyzed qualitatively and quantitativelyrnusing statements, tables and percentages. Survey findings and document analysis show that the Ethiopian civil servicernhas clearly stated rules calling for merit based appointment. However key informants and questionnaire respondentsrnrevealed that, practically political membership and loyalty is given weight for advertized civil service jobs. Keyrninformants also revealed that the ruling party EPRDF has established its own network throughout the civil servicernsystem to control the civil service for its own purpose. Document analysis and key informant interview showed that,rnstaff appraisal is most of the time not based on competence to jobs. Furthermore key informant interview andrnquestionnaire responses revealed that, some of the political elites fused in the civil service system are less competent.rnSurvey finding also revealed that, political dominance in the civil service system is posing impediments for thernorganizational performance in the selected federal ministries. The researcher has concluded that merit based recruitment,rnpromotion, transfer and remunerations are weakly practiced. There is high dominance of political elites in the civilrnservice. These all negatively affect organizational performance in the selected federal ministries and the Ethiopian civilrnservice in general. The researcher has finally recommended that, recruitment should be only merit based; politicalrninterference should be avoided from the civil service