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Mini fund stymies local progress

Local body representatives lament govt's control

Staff Correspondent
Representatives of local government bodies yesterday said they could not take up many development projects due to poor allocation of funds and lack of the authority to collect taxes locally.
At a dialogue, speakers including a former election commissioner recommended that local government elections
be held through direct nominations from political parties to make parties in power more accountable to the grassroots.
"Till date, the central government has been controlling and managing programmes for grassroots-level development. As a result, the local government institutions suffer from resource crunch," said Selina Hayat Ivy, mayor of Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) at the programme.
"A tiny portion of the national budget is directly spent by the local government bodies," she said in a keynote paper showing that grassroots-level elected bodies got 2.59 percent of the annual development programme directly in the fiscal year 2010-11.
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) organised the programme at Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (Cirdap) in the capital. CPD Chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan chaired the discussion that was moderated by Debapriya Bhattacharya, distinguished fellow of CPD.
Participants recom-
mended that the government allocate more funds and increase authority of the local government bodies to enable the grassroots-level bodies function better and address local needs effectively.
They also demanded formation of a commission on local government and separate budget for local government bodies. The discussants also favoured local government bodies function freely, without the interference from lawmakers.
Prof Sobhan said the central government had been strengthened over the decades in the name of strengthening the local government.
He said a lot of funds had been spent at grassroots level but it was the central
government that controlled the fund utilisation.
"The central government has been an instrument of control over the past 50 years," he said.
NCC Mayor Ivy said the government had already seized the local government bodies' authority to auction haat-bazaars.
"Scope for the local government bodies to generate their own income is limited and shrinking day by day," she said.
Ivy also said she had been waiting for three months for the local government ministry approval to carry out a feasibility study on constructing a bridge over the river Shitalakkhya.
Md Azmatullah Khan, mayor of Tongi Municipality, said the government had
also seized the authority of the local government to auction water bodies.
Referring to laws framed in 2009, he said the laws had given the local government bodies the power to generate income from various sources.
"But we cannot avail of the opportunity because of delays in formulation of rules and policies in line with the laws," said Azmatullah, also chairman of Municipal Association of Bangladesh.
Tofail Ahmed, local government advisor of UNDP in Bangladesh, said a lot of money was being spent at the local level through various ministries and agencies.
"But in the absence of comprehensive information, impact of total expen-
diture remains unclear," he said, recommending establishment of a commission on local government and formulation of a separate budget for the local government.
There were many laws relating to the local government. Now it required framing an umbrella law incorporating all, he said.
Foyzur Rahman Fakir, chairman of Mymensingh upazila, said the upazila parishad cannot generate revenue of its own because of delays in formulating a tax schedule in line with the law.
Former election commissioner M Sakhawat Hossain said the political parties extend support to candidates at grassroots level indirectly. It created problems in getting funds in case
a candidate from the opposition party won, he said.
To solve the problem, he said, "Let the parties make their manifestos known to the public at the very outset."
Zarina Rahman Khan, professor of public administration at Dhaka University, also echoed the former election commissioner saying that parties remain unaccountable because of extending silent support to candidates at local governmentelections.
Former commerce minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury and lawmakers Gulam Mawla Rony, Fazlul Azim and Monowar Hossain Chowdhury and Secretary of Local Government Division Abu Alam Md Shahid Khan, among others, also spoke at the discussion.