Representatives unfit for local governance?

The LGRD Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain deserves thanks as he has at least said a few words about something seemingly long forgotten--holding election to the zila parishads.

Mosharraf, who was given the portfolio around three weeks ago, said on Wednesday holding election to zila parishad was under active consideration of the government.

The quizzical part being his government's following the same old way to use the DCs for running the district administration.  

That election has been due for more than four decades--since recognition of the district as a unit of government administration in Bangladesh's constitution enacted in 1972.

Since then, the election has become a must to ensure people's participation in the district administration through their elected representatives. This is the provision of the constitution which speaks for empowering zila parishads to have control over the district administration.

This provision must be honoured if the government wants a democratic country.

Politics has been trampling the constitutional provision too long, making people's participation through their representatives in the district administration an unfulfilled promise.

All the successive governments including the present one have kept on empowering the deputy commissioners (DCs) allowing them full control over the district administration including supervision of local development activities.

Hossain made the statement after attending the DC conference organised by the government to discuss improvement of governance in district levels. 

These kinds of assurances are not new. Yet, he deserves thanks because at least he did not speak against keeping the zila parishad system like his predecessor Syed Ashraful Islam did.

Ashraf, at the July 9, 2014 conference, had hinted at abolishing the zila parishad. Too many branches of the local government, in his view, yielded no positive results and it was not good for a democratic country.

His announcement that the government had no plan at that time for holding the long overdue polls was proved right after a year.

The AL was not short on promises though. The early days of the Awami League-led government's tenure of 2009-January 2014 held hope for holding the zila parishad polls.

In the run up to 2008 parliamentary election, AL had also promised to hold the elections and to strengthen the zila parishad to ensure people's empowerment. 

But those promises were soon forgotten. The government has appointed AL leaders as administrators to 61 zila parishads in December 2011. 

Even after that appointment the government had promised to go for holding polls in the next six months. But none of the pledges were kept. 

As the AL general secretary Syed Ashraf also questioned the necessity of the zila parishad last year. It signified a dim prospect of holding the polls. Mosharraf's recent statement may only be rhetoric in the play of pervasive politics centring the zila parishad.

The fate of elected zila parishads was doomed in early January 1975, only two years after the enactment of the constitution. 

In 1975, the then AL government abolished the elected local government system. Party men were appointed as district governors with powers to control all government offices and departments at the district levels, a move the bureaucrats were not strong enough then to oppose.

The system, however, was nullified following the assassination of Bangabandhu in 1975 that led to the subsequent military takeover of state power.

During the second martial law regime, a conflict brewed between the MPs and the upazila parishad chairmen to take control over the local administration.

To resolve that, the Ershad government enacted the Zila Parishad Act in 1988 that made the MPs chairmen of the district councils.

Ershad's fall in 1990 brought an end to the system.

When BNP assumed power in 1991, it appointed DCs as chairmen of the district councils.

The AL-led government repealed the Zilla Parishad Act of 1988 and introduced a new one in 2000 with provision for direct election. However, it has not done anything to hold the zila parishad election. 

The BNP-led government also neglected the zila parishad election.

In 2003, the BNP government however formed district council development coordinating committee for each district headed by a chief executive officer, a government official.

Thus, elections to the zila parishads remained an ever receding promise.

The government's incremental empowerment of the DCs with new authorities every year will make it difficult to establish the elected representatives' supremacy over the public servants in running the district administration. 

Functioning elected zila parishads may frustrate the DCs who have emerged over the years as all-powerful officials to run the district administration. An elected zila parishad may cause malcontent in district level administration.  

The upazila level administration has become a glaring example. Elected chairmen and vice-chairmen of more than 480 upazila parishads have remained neglected since 2009 as they could not discharge their functions because the upazila nirbahi officers (UNO), civil servants, hold the overall power in the upazila administration and the central bureaucracy backs them to retain control.

The government could not come up with a strong leadership to empower public representatives in the local administration.  

The constitutional provision that is supposed to give the elected representatives of the upazila parishads the power to administer is ineffective because the government favours the bureaucrats.

And there is no guarantee that the constitutional protection will work for elected chairmen of zila parishads if the government does not change its strategy to depend on the bureaucracy for local governance.

All signs say the hope for elected and empowered zila parishad will remain a far cry.

Moreover, Public Administration Minister Syed Ashraful Islam on Thursday, on the last day of DC conference, said the government wants decentralisation of the administration and asked DCs to get prepared for this as they will have to play important role in this regard.

Does the government then want to bank on DCs, not public representatives, for decentralisation of the power?