Reform Commission on local government submits final report containing 51 recommendations
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The Reform Commission on Local Government on Sunday submitted its final report containing 51 recommendations, including proposals for allocating one-third of the government’s VAT revenue for local government bodies, reintroducing full court at the upazila level, forming city governments in Dhaka and Chittagong city corporations, placing all local government offices under the local government bodies district council, and creating local government services.
It also recommended holding elections of all five local government bodies at a time in a staggered manner through unifying the separate basic laws under one comprehensive law.
For an effective district council, it proposes to place all the government departments of a district under the district council administration.
The present allocation of the government for local government is only 0.5 per cent, Chairman of the Commission Dr. Tofael Ahmed told a press briefing after submission of the report to the Chief Adviser.
He is pointing out that local government bodies cannot be effective without sufficient allocation.
The commission proposed to strengthen the revenue mobilisation mechanism at the local level and also to enhance the central government’s funding for them so that many development works can be done by them.
The funds of the government bodies of a district should also be placed under the district council, the reform proposal said.
Our local government bodies do not have the character of a government; rather, these are based on colonial structures devised to control people, Dr Tofael noted, highlighting the need to make these bodies truly democratic and independent in their functions so that they can deliver public services smoothly.
About staggered elections under one schedule, Dr Tofael said that in a single fiscal year, 225 days and TK 23 billion were spent for holding the local government elections.
So we proposed to hold these elections under one schedule in a staggered manner so that all these elections for union parishads, upazila parishads, municipalities, and district councils can be held within a short period and at a cost of around 7 billion.
Responding to a question, he said that both local government elections and the national elections are important, and it is up to the government and the political parties to decide which one should be held first.
He, however, felt that no elections would give the desired outcome if basic reforms could not be held prior to that.
The Commission proposed to create a public engineering cadre combing local government engineering department and public health engineering department
The report also proposed to create wards for holding local government elections, saying that each union will be divided into three wards for upazila elections and each upazila will have three wards for district council elections.
It also recommended the establishment of a court at the upazila level under a senior assistant judge to dispose of civil and criminal cases.
The commission proposed to fill all the vacant posts in union and upazila health offices.
A combined budget for all the local government bodies can be formulated, and the budget needs to be doubled for the next fiscal year, the commission report said.
The commission proposed to place all 30 government departments under the district councils.
This system is already functioning in the hill districts, and we propose to do the same in all the districts.
Responding to a question, he said that setting up a full court at the upazila level is not unconstitutional.