Local govt gets only ideas

Just one year ago, the finance minister in his budget speech promised that his government would present a roadmap within its tenure on empowerment of the local government system.
After a year yesterday, he came up with some highly ambitious ideas to that end. He however said all those were his personal views and his government would not have time to think about those as its tenure came to the fag-end.
So, he has left the ideas for the next government to address the issues and offer a national debate to forge a consensus.
His ideas include distribution of responsibilities among the zila, upazila and union parishads, ensuring coordination among them, and giving them some responsibilities both regulatory and developmental in nature.
The ideas also include creating an effective and inspirational bureaucracy for local governance. Around 11 lakh government officials need to be transferred to the district level administration for this.
As per Muhith's ideas, a fixed portion of the central revenue has to be transferred to the local government bodies. In return, regular revenue collection at the local level has to be ensured.
In defence of the ideas, he said in a densely populated country like Bangladesh it was extremely difficult to govern and deliver services centrally from Dhaka. "We, therefore, would like to effect more decentralisation and more delegation of powers in course of time, at the district, upazila and union levels."
In light of the opinions to be found in the budget discussion, Muhith said his government would prepare a concept paper on the local government issues and arrange a national debate.
The minister's ideas, though he claimed to be his personal, however reflected the ruling Awami League's electoral promises to make the local government bodies stronger and self-reliant through decentralisation of power.
But the truth is different. His government could not perform on the party's electoral pledges. One year ago, he also acknowledged that the government could not make much headway in its tenure to strengthen the local government system.
He then claimed substantial progress had been made in furthering the election process of zila parishads. He made the statement six months after his government appointed 61 administrators, mostly AL men, to the same number of zila parishads.
No election was held to the zila parishads, although the AL in its electoral manifesto promised for holding the polls.
The finance minister yesterday claimed: "The district administrators have been appointed to pave the way for having elected public representatives."