Municipalities unable to pay salaries would be dissolved: minister
Local government minister Md Tazul Islam yesterday said he would propose for dissolving the municipal councils if any municipality fails to pay salaries to its employees for 12 months.
"A move will be initiated to amend the Local Government [Pourasava] Act, incorporating a provision of dissolving councils that fail to pay salaries to their employees from their own earnings," the minister said at a national policy dialogue on Strengthening the Urban Local Governments in Bangladesh. Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities Project (LIUPCP) of the Local Government Division (LGD), Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and UNDP Bangladesh organised the dialogue in collaboration with Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) Bangladesh and IPE Global (India).
Tazul said city corporations and municipalities run through their own laws, and it will be run through its own income according to its law. But most municipalities cannot pay their salaries, he added.
"It is not believable that people lack ability to pay taxes," Tazul said.
He said a large amount of money was allocated to the municipality level from the Prime Minister's Fund and LGRD ministry fund during the coronavirus pandemic. Everyone including the mayors and other stakeholders should take the responsibilities for strengthening local government bodies like municipalities and city corporations, he said.
PPRC Executive Chairman Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman chaired the session.
British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson, said, "Bangladesh's progress in recent years in poverty eradication and several human development fronts is remarkable, although sustaining progress has proved more difficult in the urban context in recent years."
Sudipto Mukerjee, resident representative of UNDP Bangladesh, said many of the challenges in eradicating urban poverty have remained unaddressed in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is yet to finalise its national urban policy, he said.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, only about 18 percent of urban households were covered by social protection according to the World Bank.
"With a prolonged crisis that has resulted in a significant rise in urban poverty, cities will require greater social protection coverage specifically targeting the newly created -- as well as the previously existing -- urban poor," Sudipto said, adding that the LIUPC project has been playing a considerable role as tried-and-tested model for urban social protection which can be considered for scale-up by the government.
Dr Salina Hayat Ivy, mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation; Ariful Huq Chowdhury, mayor of Sylhet City Corporation; Md Rafiqul Islam, secretary general of Municipal Association of Bangladesh and Dipak Chakraborti, additional secretary (Admin Wing) of LGD, also spoke at the programme.
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