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Local govt ignored

No visible efforts to strengthen upazila parishads; govt officials given elected representatives' job

Shakhawat Liton
The present state of upazila parishads appears as a glaring example of the Awami League-led govern-
ment's neglect of its electoral commitment to strengthen the local government institutions.
Let alone making the system effective, formation of upazila parishads still remains incomplete as polls to Some 1,600 posts reserved for women were not held in last four years.
The possibility of holding polls to these reserved posts is very slim as the Election Commission (EC) has started taking preparations to hold the upazila parishad elections after October this year, a senior
official said.
The polls could not be held due to indifference of both the government and the EC. Women representa-
tives elected to reserved seats in union parishads and municipalities are electorates and are entitled to contest the polls to the reserved seats in upazila parishads.
The present state of the chairmen and vice-chairmen who were elected in the January 22, 2009 polls is not better than the fate of parishads, activities of which are being run by the public servants. The elected representatives still do not have control over the parishads' functions.
Gripped by frustration and anger,
upazila parishads' chairmen have given up hope for the better days. Some of them are planning to contest the next parliamentary elections.
"We are still in the same situation what existed in the beginning of newly elected upazila parishads in 2009," Gazi MM Amzad Hossain Milon, chairman of Tarash upazila parishad of Sirajganj, told The Daily Star on December 26.
Being an upazila chairman, he says, he visits his office every day. "But I do not have any important work to do as the UNO does all with other government officials."
He says a Union Parishad chairman is more independent and more powerful than an upazila chairman as the former can do their work without interference from the MPs or government officials.
Amzad says local MPs carry out most of the development activities through party activists and government officials with allocations of food grains.
"Even the upazila parishads are not being run as per the Upazila Parishad Act. Circulars issued by different ministries have empowered the UNOs and other officials to carry out their activities bypassing upazila parishads," Harunur Rashid, chairman of Dumki upazila of Patuakhali, told The Daily Star.
The current state of upazila parishads also exemplifies how the ruling AL has forgotten its electoral pledges to give due importance to local government bodies with a view to decentralising power.
"The local government institutions will play a critical role in development programmes. Self-reliant local self-governed institutions will be established at upazila and zila levels to this end," said the AL in the manifesto made in the run-up to the December 29, 2008 parliamentary polls.
But assuming office the AL took a different turn. It rejected the past caretaker government's move to make upazila parishads free from interference from local MPs. The AL-led government re -empowered local MPs making them advisers to the upazila parishads. It was also made mandatory for the parishads to take
advice from MPs to run their activities.
Moreover, the government took no effective measures to empower upazila parishads to supervise and monitor functions of different government departments including education, fisheries, social welfare, health, etc.
Therefore, UNOs, who were made chief executive officers of the upazila parishads, are basically running the functions of the upazila parishads.
Introduced in 1982, the upazila parishads still struggle to function effectively. The first polls to upazila parishads were held in May 1985. But after the second elections held in 1990, the upazila parishads came under political attack and the system was abolished in 1991 by then BNP government.
In 1998, the AL-led government restored the system by enacting a new law. But elections could not be held in a decade until the past caretaker government led by Fakhruddin Ahmed moved for the polls in 2008.
The EC announced the schedule for the polls when the caretaker was in power and held the polls in January 2009 when the AL took office.
Apart from upazila parishads, the AL-led government has not made any move in last four years as per its electoral pledges to hold polls to zila parishads.
Instead, it appointed administrators, who are ruling party men, to 61 zila parishads, another tier of the local government system, in December 2011.
There is no move to hold zila parishad polls in the remaining one year of the government's tenure.
Only union parishads are fortunate in terms of elections being held almost on a regular basis.