DCC budget and people's expectations
Sunday, 11 July 2010
THE Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) announced a Tk. 21.72 billion budget for the fiscal 2010-11 late last week. The size of the budget is more than 50 per cent higher, in terms of financial outlay, than that of the last fiscal. However, the budget for the last fiscal was downsized by Tk. 4.4 billion in the face of resource constraints. The owners of residential, commercial and other fixed structures, flats and apartments would again be happy for the reason that the holding tax has remained unchanged at 12 per cent. The DCC has kept the rate of holding tax unchanged for the past seven years. But all the residents of the city, at the same time, have reasons to be unhappy with the operations of the corporation in many areas.
The reasons for the failure to provide basic minimum services to city dwellers by the DCC are obviously many. Financial constraint can be noted here as the number one problem. It is no denying that the DCC's annual budget has never been commensurate with the need of a city that accommodates more than one-tenth of the country's population. The corporation is otherwise meant for doing do a lot of work including the maintenance and repair works of streets, roads, lanes and by-lanes stretching over a few thousands kilometers, keeping surface drains clean, collecting garbage and waste materials and dumping the same at designated places, ensuring lighting of the streets from dusk to dawn, seasonal pest control and providing a modicum of other civic amenities. The situation in some areas is better than before but the overall performance of the DCC has been unsatisfactory for many years.
Most streets, roads, lanes and by-lanes are in a pitiable condition. The DCC has been ignoring the need for re-carpeting of many major city streets. Instead, it does some occasional repair work on those, leading to the creation of bumps here and there. The worst is the case with roads and lanes in areas that are generally inhabited by middle and lower middle class. Roads in those areas are full of potholes which even during dry season remain filled up with filthy water due to lack of proper drainage system. Except for a few clean patches such as Bijoy Sarani, Airport Road, Manik Mia Avenue and the road beside the Crescent Lake, most other parts are problem-ridden.
The operations of the DCC have largely been affected by resource constraints, inefficiency of its workforce and corruption. The level of corruption in DCC has been very high, leading to poor quality of construction work of roads, surface drains, markets and procurement of goods. There is none to ensure the quality of construction work in the DCC. Inspection, monitoring, evaluation and accountability are words that are, apparently, unknown in the world of the country's largest local government body.
The government does need to increase the allocation to the DCC in view of its large volume of responsibility. It would be, perhaps, not out of place to suggest that a part of the revenue that the government earns from land and other real estate transfers within the areas under DCC jurisdiction should go to the DCC. The government could allow such sharing of revenue without hurting its own interest by just ensuring registration of land and other real estate at actual or near-actual prices. If necessary other options like floatation of municipal bonds do need to be explored, through appropriate changes to the existing legal framework that provides that ground rules for the DCC to run its operations. However, higher revenues or resources would mean little without curbs on corruption, political interference and the predominance of muscle power in managing the affairs of the DCC. Local government bodies should enjoy functional autonomy but there should be an effective mechanism in place to monitor their activities that concern citizens' interests.
The reasons for the failure to provide basic minimum services to city dwellers by the DCC are obviously many. Financial constraint can be noted here as the number one problem. It is no denying that the DCC's annual budget has never been commensurate with the need of a city that accommodates more than one-tenth of the country's population. The corporation is otherwise meant for doing do a lot of work including the maintenance and repair works of streets, roads, lanes and by-lanes stretching over a few thousands kilometers, keeping surface drains clean, collecting garbage and waste materials and dumping the same at designated places, ensuring lighting of the streets from dusk to dawn, seasonal pest control and providing a modicum of other civic amenities. The situation in some areas is better than before but the overall performance of the DCC has been unsatisfactory for many years.
Most streets, roads, lanes and by-lanes are in a pitiable condition. The DCC has been ignoring the need for re-carpeting of many major city streets. Instead, it does some occasional repair work on those, leading to the creation of bumps here and there. The worst is the case with roads and lanes in areas that are generally inhabited by middle and lower middle class. Roads in those areas are full of potholes which even during dry season remain filled up with filthy water due to lack of proper drainage system. Except for a few clean patches such as Bijoy Sarani, Airport Road, Manik Mia Avenue and the road beside the Crescent Lake, most other parts are problem-ridden.
The operations of the DCC have largely been affected by resource constraints, inefficiency of its workforce and corruption. The level of corruption in DCC has been very high, leading to poor quality of construction work of roads, surface drains, markets and procurement of goods. There is none to ensure the quality of construction work in the DCC. Inspection, monitoring, evaluation and accountability are words that are, apparently, unknown in the world of the country's largest local government body.
The government does need to increase the allocation to the DCC in view of its large volume of responsibility. It would be, perhaps, not out of place to suggest that a part of the revenue that the government earns from land and other real estate transfers within the areas under DCC jurisdiction should go to the DCC. The government could allow such sharing of revenue without hurting its own interest by just ensuring registration of land and other real estate at actual or near-actual prices. If necessary other options like floatation of municipal bonds do need to be explored, through appropriate changes to the existing legal framework that provides that ground rules for the DCC to run its operations. However, higher revenues or resources would mean little without curbs on corruption, political interference and the predominance of muscle power in managing the affairs of the DCC. Local government bodies should enjoy functional autonomy but there should be an effective mechanism in place to monitor their activities that concern citizens' interests.