Empowering local governments in Bangladesh
Saturday, 17 November 2007
Syed Fattahul Alim
DEVOLUTION of power to the local governments is an age-old demand of the political quarters as well as the intelligentsia. The governments that took office in the past were never short of goodwill to empower the local government institutions. And on the face of it, they even took various steps to strengthen the existing local government institutions in the country. But empowerment of the local government had a different connotation to all these governments. What really happened in the name of empowerment of the local government bodies was in fact vesting of more power and resources in the hands of the central government bureaucracy that controlled these institutions. The result was the local government bodies like union parishad, upazila parishad, zilla parishad, municipality, and city corporation remained as powerless as ever despite all the trappings of power they were adorned with. And in the final analysis, the local government turned out to be an instrument in the hands of the political governments at the centre to extend their tentacles of power to the grass root level in the rural backwaters.
But what does devolution of power to the local government really mean? And what good delegation of more authority to the local government would do to the nation and its citizens, in the first place? Are not under the democratic parlance the elected representatives of the legislative assembly enough to look after all the needs of the citizens?
The history of states and central governments show that local level institutions predate the central governments. Since the classical antiquity to the colonial times in the recent past, it was through imperial conquests that new countries and territories were occupied or annexed by kings and emperors where a central government was imposed from above. Those central governments, in most of the cases, did not represent the people they lorded it over. The governments at the centre were always looked upon by the subjects they governed as aliens whose main job was to collect tolls by force and crush any attempt to defy the dictates of the central authority ruthlessly using brute force. People who were thus ruled had nothing to do with such governments lying at some remote imperial capital.
But how did the people at the grass root level living in the villages and townships solved their day to day problems arising locally? At every place on earth whether ruled by any central authority or not, people had their own institutions where people would meet and discuss to solve their problems. These people's institutions were the precursor of local governments in the modern sense of the term.
The emergence of national governments in the post-renaissance Europe brought a new dimension to the central governments. The governments at the national capitals could no more be termed aliens, for the rulers whether democratically elected or not belonged to the same stock of people, speaking the same language and being heir to the same culture of the people thus administered. But then again such national governments did not do away with the necessity of local governments. In fact, central governments could never replace the importance and need of the local government institutions in the lives of the people.
The purpose of the digression above on the subject of central and local governments is to show that historically, local government institutions are more ancient than central authorities and that they are real people's institutions in their own right.
Returning to our own context in Bangladesh, it would be found that our society has a long tradition so far as local governments are concerned. Even during the British colonial period people would elect their representatives at the union boards or union councils with great enthusiasm. In our own union parishad elections, turn-out of the common people is very high. This is for the simple reason that the elected representatives of these bodies remain within their reach and are accessible to them whenever the need arises.
But traditionally the central governments that came here in turn did never allow the local government institutions to grow the way they should have. As a result of this attitude of the central government, people have been gradually alienated from the process of decision-making and the situation also left its negative impact on the development activities at the local level.
On this score, the incumbent caretaker government has taken some bold strides. The high powered committee formed in last June has finally submitted its recommendations on devolution of power to the local governments to the chief adviser.
The mean features of the recommendations are as follows:
Abolishment of the Gram Sarkar system, a village level local government institution, introduced by the immediate past four-party alliance government.
Putting an end to the interference of the members of Jatiya Sangsad in the affairs of the local government.
Increasing participation of women in local level decision-making by increasing their reserved seats from 30 to 40 and, finally, after three terms, with five years' tenure for each term, in office, phasing out the quota system for women's seats altogether.
The newly recommended structure for the local government bodies will have three tiers for the rural areas (union parishad, upazila parishad and zilla parishad), and two tiers for the urban areas (municipalities and the city corporations).
Ensuring transparency and accountability in the decision-making of the local government institutions, enhanced participation of the people in the day to day business of these bodies and pooling more resources with increased incomes for these institutions.
Setting up of an independent commission to effectively free the local governments from the central one through disentangling them from the tentacles of politics and bureaucracy. The commission will also gradually free the local governments from the control of the ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives.
Ensure participation of qualified candidates as local government representatives on the basis of a set criteria. and
Dismantling of urban local governments like municipalities, city corporations that were commissioned without observing the minimum criteria and so on.
The government has pledged to go ahead with proposed recommendations for empowering and overhauling the local government system in the country forthwith.
This is a kind of radical reform in the local government system that has been suggested in the proposal. As has been narrated in the foregoing, central governments vis-à-vis the local level ones have their separate tracks of historical evolution. Nonetheless, they have functioned in parallel. In modern democratic parlance, these two systems of people's government supplement each other. The types and systems in different countries are as varied as their histories and cultures. And as such there is no set standard for any ideal system of local government anywhere in the world. Bangladesh also needs to have its own, unique system of local government. It should be based on our own culture, history and practice. And it is through a protracted method of trial and error that such a system could be evolved.
The incumbent government has at least laid the foundation to start the process of evolving the best practice for local government system in the country.
DEVOLUTION of power to the local governments is an age-old demand of the political quarters as well as the intelligentsia. The governments that took office in the past were never short of goodwill to empower the local government institutions. And on the face of it, they even took various steps to strengthen the existing local government institutions in the country. But empowerment of the local government had a different connotation to all these governments. What really happened in the name of empowerment of the local government bodies was in fact vesting of more power and resources in the hands of the central government bureaucracy that controlled these institutions. The result was the local government bodies like union parishad, upazila parishad, zilla parishad, municipality, and city corporation remained as powerless as ever despite all the trappings of power they were adorned with. And in the final analysis, the local government turned out to be an instrument in the hands of the political governments at the centre to extend their tentacles of power to the grass root level in the rural backwaters.
But what does devolution of power to the local government really mean? And what good delegation of more authority to the local government would do to the nation and its citizens, in the first place? Are not under the democratic parlance the elected representatives of the legislative assembly enough to look after all the needs of the citizens?
The history of states and central governments show that local level institutions predate the central governments. Since the classical antiquity to the colonial times in the recent past, it was through imperial conquests that new countries and territories were occupied or annexed by kings and emperors where a central government was imposed from above. Those central governments, in most of the cases, did not represent the people they lorded it over. The governments at the centre were always looked upon by the subjects they governed as aliens whose main job was to collect tolls by force and crush any attempt to defy the dictates of the central authority ruthlessly using brute force. People who were thus ruled had nothing to do with such governments lying at some remote imperial capital.
But how did the people at the grass root level living in the villages and townships solved their day to day problems arising locally? At every place on earth whether ruled by any central authority or not, people had their own institutions where people would meet and discuss to solve their problems. These people's institutions were the precursor of local governments in the modern sense of the term.
The emergence of national governments in the post-renaissance Europe brought a new dimension to the central governments. The governments at the national capitals could no more be termed aliens, for the rulers whether democratically elected or not belonged to the same stock of people, speaking the same language and being heir to the same culture of the people thus administered. But then again such national governments did not do away with the necessity of local governments. In fact, central governments could never replace the importance and need of the local government institutions in the lives of the people.
The purpose of the digression above on the subject of central and local governments is to show that historically, local government institutions are more ancient than central authorities and that they are real people's institutions in their own right.
Returning to our own context in Bangladesh, it would be found that our society has a long tradition so far as local governments are concerned. Even during the British colonial period people would elect their representatives at the union boards or union councils with great enthusiasm. In our own union parishad elections, turn-out of the common people is very high. This is for the simple reason that the elected representatives of these bodies remain within their reach and are accessible to them whenever the need arises.
But traditionally the central governments that came here in turn did never allow the local government institutions to grow the way they should have. As a result of this attitude of the central government, people have been gradually alienated from the process of decision-making and the situation also left its negative impact on the development activities at the local level.
On this score, the incumbent caretaker government has taken some bold strides. The high powered committee formed in last June has finally submitted its recommendations on devolution of power to the local governments to the chief adviser.
The mean features of the recommendations are as follows:
Abolishment of the Gram Sarkar system, a village level local government institution, introduced by the immediate past four-party alliance government.
Putting an end to the interference of the members of Jatiya Sangsad in the affairs of the local government.
Increasing participation of women in local level decision-making by increasing their reserved seats from 30 to 40 and, finally, after three terms, with five years' tenure for each term, in office, phasing out the quota system for women's seats altogether.
The newly recommended structure for the local government bodies will have three tiers for the rural areas (union parishad, upazila parishad and zilla parishad), and two tiers for the urban areas (municipalities and the city corporations).
Ensuring transparency and accountability in the decision-making of the local government institutions, enhanced participation of the people in the day to day business of these bodies and pooling more resources with increased incomes for these institutions.
Setting up of an independent commission to effectively free the local governments from the central one through disentangling them from the tentacles of politics and bureaucracy. The commission will also gradually free the local governments from the control of the ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives.
Ensure participation of qualified candidates as local government representatives on the basis of a set criteria. and
Dismantling of urban local governments like municipalities, city corporations that were commissioned without observing the minimum criteria and so on.
The government has pledged to go ahead with proposed recommendations for empowering and overhauling the local government system in the country forthwith.
This is a kind of radical reform in the local government system that has been suggested in the proposal. As has been narrated in the foregoing, central governments vis-à-vis the local level ones have their separate tracks of historical evolution. Nonetheless, they have functioned in parallel. In modern democratic parlance, these two systems of people's government supplement each other. The types and systems in different countries are as varied as their histories and cultures. And as such there is no set standard for any ideal system of local government anywhere in the world. Bangladesh also needs to have its own, unique system of local government. It should be based on our own culture, history and practice. And it is through a protracted method of trial and error that such a system could be evolved.
The incumbent government has at least laid the foundation to start the process of evolving the best practice for local government system in the country.