More power, resources sought for local govt

The high-powered committee on local government yesterday submitted its report to the chief adviser with suggestions that the government give local government institutions more authority and resources for effective decentralisation of power. Receiving the report at his office in the afternoon, Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed asked the LGRD and cooperatives ministry to initiate steps to implement the recommendations made by the committee. "Time has come to separate the local government system from the central government. We will start working on the recommendations tomorrow [today] both in the short and long term," LGRD Adviser Anwarul Iqbal told a news conference soon after receipt of the report that is split in four volumes having recommendations aimed at ensuring good governance at the grassroots level.Former secretary Dr AMM Shawkat heads the seven-member committee set up by the caretaker government on June 3. In the report, the committee suggested measures to ensure transparency and accountability in decision-making process at the local government bodies, participation of the people, increased income and resources, and internal efficiency. It also recommended setting up an independent commission for effective decentralisation of power by freeing the local governments of political influence and bureaucratic tangles. It thinks lawmakers' interference in the running of local government institutions must be checked. Currently, the LGRD and cooperatives ministry regulates the local government institutions. If the commission is formed, its jurisdiction over the local government units will be largely curtailed.The committee also made recommendation for the reserved seats for women to be increased from 30 percent to 40 percent. Talking to The Daily Star last night, Dr Badiul Alam Majumdar, a member of the committee, said it would be a milestone in the decentralisation of power once the recommendations are implemented. The committee spoke for a three-tier local government system comprising zila, upazila and union parishad for the rural while city corporations and municipalities for the urban areas. It strongly advocated that the government dissolve the controversial Gram Sarker system that was reintroduced by the immediate past BNP-led alliance government. Besides, it outlined qualifications and disqualifications for the aspirants to local government bodies so that qualified and honest people could make it through elections.URBAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT About urban local government system, the committee observed that most of the city corporations and municipalities were formed on political consideration without maintaining the standards prescribed in local government laws. It recommended strict compliance with the standards while commissioning any new city corporation in future. It said the number of municipalities now stands at 309 and recommended demunicipalisation of the ones that were formed without fulfilling the minimum criteria. Since restoration of democracy in 1990, successive governments had pledged to strengthen the local government system. Both BNP and Awami League (AL) governments had formed committees to that end, but desisted from implementing the recommendations made.