UZ chairmen have little to do under existing legal framework

Doubts have surfaced whether the newly-elected Upazila Chairmen will be able to play their due role as the existing framework has left little scope for them to serve their voters, chairmen and experts said.  
Though various quarters, including the Election Commission (EC) and the government, talked too much about strengthening the local government bodies the key issue of giving the elected representatives enough power remains ignored.
As a result, the newly-elected Upazila Chairmen find themselves in a difficult situation to meet the people's huge expectations with their limited authority because of the direct intervention of local lawmakers and UNOs (Upazila Nirbahi Officers) in upazila affairs.
Before the local government (LG) elections, the chairmen made tall promises to resolve long-persisting problems relating to utilities, healthcare and education, development of roads and law and order.
The problem was created after the Upazila Parishad Act, 1998 was passed making the MPs (Members of the Parliament) advisers to the upazila parishads in their constituencies.
According to the law, each upazila parishad will take advice from its adviser to carry out its activities. It also does not allow upazila parishads to send development plans to the government for implementation without recommendation of the advisers concerned.
Although an ordinance was promulgated by the last caretaker government with the provision to resolve the potential conflict between MPs and UP chairmen by granting the latter more independence, this was scrapped by the 9th Parliament in 2009.
"Yes, the newly elected upazial chairmen made too much promises to voters in respect of their long-standing problems before the polls. But it is true that they (chairmen) have no authority to deliver those," President of Bangladesh Upazila Parishad Association (BUPA) Harun-or-Rashid Howlader said.
Chief of the BUPA, which is the apex body of the elected chairmen, said the local MP in most cases makes the major decisions in the upazila parishad meetings, going beyond their advisory role, which creates problems between upazila representatives and the local MP.
"In some cases, UNOs (Upazila Nirbahi Officers) dominate the upazila council meetings," he said adding that the Upazila system was introduced to decentralise the power.
Headed by the elected chairman, the upazila council consists of vice chairmen, chairmen of all union councils under the upazila and heads of the 17 government departments, who have no voting rights, he added.
"The elected chairmen now can only listen to problems of the people. They can do nothing to resolve those as they largely depend on MPs and UNOs under the existing legal framework," he said.  
Talking about the issue, Enayet Hossain Monto, Mirzapur Upazila Chairman of Tangail, said civic amenities cannot be properly ensured under the existing structure of the Upazila Parishad as it does not have enough administrative and lawful power and financial authority or both -- to do so.
"The government should immediately amend the act to make it a functional and dynamic body to meet people's expectations. Otherwise, huge public funds for holding the upazila polls will be meaningless," he said.
According to the Election Commission (EC), a total of 459 upazila election out of 487 upazilas has been completed in phases. Polling of 22 upazilas would be held later while tenure of the rest 6 upazilas is yet to expire.
It said the just-concluded election has cost around Tk 3.5 billion in the form of polls management (Tk 1.45 billion) and law and order arrangements (Tk 1.97 billion).
Talking to the FE, former Vice-Chairman of Nilphamari Sadar Upazila Daulat Zahan said she did not take part in the just concluded polls because of the failure to redeem the promises she made in the previous elections.
When contacted, local government specialist Dr Tofael Ahmed said the elections will mean nothing unless the problems are addressed. "Rules as well as regulations have to be changed to get expected level of results from the local government," he added.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said existence of upazila parishad is found only in papers for limiting its power, which is very much contradictory to the constitution.
"It (the existing system) leads to misuse of power, which creates the scope for corruption in its activities like procurement and others," he said.
They also stressed the need for empowering the local government bodies through giving legal authority to the elected representatives for ensuring proper civic and other amenities.