The problem with Ipoh City Council has to do with its burgeoning staff. Over a thousand personnel are on the council's payroll.

The mayor, secretary and heads of departments are civil servants. Although the mayor serves a definite term, the same is not so of the rest. Most of the directors have been in office for over a decade. Some have become deadwood and serve the council little purpose other than to warm their seats.

It is about time that their tenure be revised. A term of four years is desirous to avoid familiarity, which is a prelude to corruption.

Ipoh needs a trained horticulturist who can lead the Landscaping Department from the front. Merely placing a civil servant, and an unskilled one too, is not the answer. The department, apparently, has a trained guy but he was passed over for reasons of ethnicity.

I believe the time to revamp an ineffectual system has come. Let us not be too parochial in our outlook. The reintroduction of local council election now becomes a necessity.