Legislators and local government
THE Upazilla Parishad (UP) 2009 bill is now before the parliament. If passed in its current form it has the potential to tie up the courts and slow down regional development for a long time to come, as many people believe that it violates article 59 of the constitution, is anti-democratic and could possibly be proven in court to be also illegal.
The PM and her parliamentary colleagues will be well advised to consult widely both within and outside parliament and listen to the views of major stakeholders before legislating, as this could avoid a lot of trouble and headache in the future.
On this page on April 5, Md. Anwarul Kabir explained the genesis and provisions of the proposed new bill and how this would negate those measures in the RPO that were meant to strengthen the role and independence of local governments.
The new bill, which ensures oversight powers of MPs over elected representatives of local government, has the support of most parliamentarians. UP chairpersons and co-chairpersons elected earlier this year under the RPO provisions in the meantime remain inactive, and live without any certainty about their future role and status.
The UP elections were the first to be held since the restoration of democracy in 1991. National governments till now have enjoyed undivided power and control over resources, and have driven the regional development agenda and expenditure through parliamentarians belonging to their own parties.
Decentralisation and strong local governments, especially those controlled by political rivals, would seriously erode their power base.
The entrenched senior bureaucracy in Dhaka also does not want its authority over regional government functionaries to be undermined. The passing of this bill can only delay, but not stop, the process of decentralisation as the people overwhelmingly support strong, independent and effective local governments.
The genuine concerns of MPs need to be considered. It is not enough to simply say that their role is to legislate only and they should stay clear of local development issues. Currently, MPs are elected on the basis of promises made to their constituents and they feel that unless they fulfil these commitments they will lose electoral support.
Their position is made worse under existing conditions as they have very limited responsibilities in parliament unless they hold ministerial or parliamentary committee positions. The perceived problems between the MP and the UP chairperson lie in the fact that they share the same constituency.
Here are a few suggestions that could hopefully overcome the problem arising from shared constituencies, make local governments more independent and effective, allow MPs to have a role in regional development, and also make the electoral process fairer.
Union Councils have been around for a very long time and have worked quite well. Recently, elected chairpersons and vice-chairpersons are also likely to run the UPs effectively if there is no political interference from the local MPs and the entrenched bureaucracy, and if a fixed proportion of the national budget (ca. 33%) is allocated for local governance and regional development to District Councils on the basis of district population.
Allocation of block grants to legislators to be used at their discretion for development work in their own constituencies will accentuate corruption and create further rift between MPs and local governments.
Many of the potential conflicts will disappear if the MPs are elected from multi-seat district constituencies on the basis of proportional representation. In this case the MPs will represent a district rather than an upazila, and could have a broader role in highlighting regional problems and requesting development funds in parliament.
It would be best if MPs and UP chairpersons were included as members of the District Council, where they could be jointly involved in preparing funding requests and allocating funds for need-based development in upazillas and unions. Potential conflicts could be further minimised if MPs had constituency offices in the district HQ rather than in any upazila.
The 300 parliamentary seats, and the 100 reserved seats for women, could be allocated to districts on the basis of their populations. This would eliminate the need for demarcating each one of the 300 constituencies on the basis of population without overlapping and straddling of upazilas and unions.
Proportional representation in parliament based on multi-seat district constituencies would remove the anomaly between the percentage of votes received and the number of seats won, and reduce the brute majorities we have seen in the last two national elections. Proportional representation could also make possible the election of highly qualified and competent people who are not aligned to one of the two political camps in Bangladesh.
In the spirit of the constitution and her own election promise of a strong and effective local government system I hope the PM will use the moral authority of her huge mandate to suitably modify the bill before parliament.
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