Editorial
Development work hampered
One more reason for strong local bodies
Just what sort of complications can arise in the absence of a strong local government system in Bangladesh has been highlighted yet once again. An evaluation meeting related to development works in the zilla parishads has exposed all too clearly the many difficulties which chief executive officers of these parishads are hamstrung by. They have made it clear that their work and in broad measure plans for development at the local level are almost always made hostage to the demands made on them both by lawmakers and elected upazilla chairmen. Intriguingly, neither the MPs nor the upazilla chairmen feel it necessary to interact with one another on the priorities for their areas, which again is a powerful hint of the adversarial relationship between them now hampering progress in nearly every area.
Quite a few points arise from the grievances voiced by the CEOs at the conference. The first one relates, of course, to their role as part of the bureaucracy in local government activities. With no clearly defined framework of local government in place, it is always the bureaucracy which tends to take the centre, which again may not be conducive to the public interest. That said, the move by the government to have lawmakers operate as advisors to local bodies considerably dilutes the authority, indeed undermines the very concept of local government. Those elected to shape and implement of social uplift programmes in Bangladesh's rural regions at the local level are thus at sea. The preponderant role of the MPs has left the elected upazilla parishads in a state of non-function, affording them little opportunity to fulfill the mandate given them by the electorate. Overall, this segmentation of authority among the chief executive officers, lawmakers and upazilla representatives has created a stalemate where a smooth administration of local government affairs should have been.
Serious rethinking is called for to remedy the situation. One could suggest a greater and more positive coordination of activities by these three levels of local government instruments, but that would still leave the problem unresolved. Which leaves one raising the old question of the need for a strong local government system to evolve and to be encouraged, one which will truly devolve power to the grassroots.
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