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Wrong signal on upazila

Manzoor Ahmed
LGRD Minister Syed Ashraful Islam got it wrong when he said on Thursday, after a meeting with members of the Local Government Commission, that lawmakers should be given a role in the Upazila Council in order to allow them to "adopt and implement projects according to their promises" to their constituencies. Let's hope this is not the considered position of the ruling alliance and the cabinet
The minister also sent the wrong signal when, responding to questions about the violence and irregularities in upazila polling, he said these were "scattered incidences" and these happened because the campaigning was not under political partybanners.
Regardless of the election rules, the parties were active, and the candidates were mostly identified as supported by parties, with the elected ones being over-
whelmingly from the Awami League. Are violence and misconduct acceptable and excusable if these are "scattered," whatever this means?
The contrast between the upazila polls and the festive and peaceful parliamentary election could hardly be missed. Is this explained by the way the events were managed by a caretaker regime and a political government?One hopes not.
Development projects -- roads, bridges, irrigation schemes and schools - are not personal gifts or favours from either the parliament member or the upazila chairman. These are financed by taxpayer money, and their planning and implementation should be decided collectively by public representatives specifically elected for this purpose. The upazila council consisting of the chair, vice-chairs and die members (by law, the chairs of the union councils) is the legally designated collective body for this task.
Members of the national parliament
have the supremely important job of making laws and ensuring the provision of resources to fulfill the intents and purposes of the laws and decisions of the parliament.
The principle of separation of powers and functions of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of die government has come to be recognised as a fundamental tenet of checks and balances iff the democratic polity. This is more explicitly provided for in the American constitution than any odicr, but the spirit and intent is reflected in democratic constitutions worldwide includingours.
In real life, absolute separation of die three branches is not possible, because they have to work together; but the principle still needs to be upheld by refraining from deliberate undermining of the separation by mixing up die roles and functions.
"Pork barrel'' projects, allocation of funds for projects in a legislator's constituency tagged to financial appropriation bills, not justified by economic criteria or larger public interest, is not uncommon in US. This, however, is denounced as the ugly side of democratic politics and not something to be emulated.
The Local Government Commission chair, Mr. Muhammad Faizur Razzak. reportedly asked the LGRD minister not to follow the Indian example of doling out lump sum allocations of Rs. two crores to
each parliament member for projects in respective constituencies.This is an exam pie of the ultimate "pork barrel" or a slush fund, handing over public money to individuals to be spent widiout sufficient transparency, accountability, and scrutiny ofa public body.
There are good lessons that one can learn from the efforts in India to strengthen the Panchayat Raj. including die 73rd constitutional amendment of 1992, which enhanced the authority and role of the local bodies and gave them a substantial share of centrally collected public revenue. The MP Local Area Development Fund Scheme, as the slush fund is known formally, is not one of these lessons.
In fact, the legality of the MP fund in India is under review by a Supreme Court constitution bench. Started in 1993-94, the fund has used up a staggering sum of Rs. 90,000 crores to date.
It began with a grant of Rs. five lakhs to each lawmaker per year; this was raised to Rs one crore in the very next year; raised again to two crores in 1997-98; and a proposal is underway to raise it to Rs. five crores. MPs apparendy find it easy and tempting to keep increasing the discretionary fund under their control.
The last BNP-Jamaat political regime followed the practice, somewhat informally, of making special allocations to parliament members; in this case only to
their own party loyalists. In the previous political regime led by Awami League, Parliament members as designated advisers to the Upazila body, often influenced unduly fund allocations and project decision-making at the local level.
Citizens sent a message through the parliamentary election on December 29 against die environment of corruption and chicanery created by slush funds, personal influence peddling and lack of accountability of public officials.
The Awami League manifesto spoke about "effecting a radical change of the political system" by empowering local government to play a critical role in development programs and establishing "self-reliant local self-government institutions at the upazila and zila levels.” These are inspiring promises to the people, which must be kept.
Dr Ahmed is Senior Adviser at the Institute of Educational Development, Brae University. The views expressed are his own
***The Awami League manifesto spoke about "effecting a radical change of the political system" by empowering local government to play a critical role in development programs and establishing "self-reliant local self-government institutions at the upazila and zila levels." These are inspiring promises to the people, which must be kept.***