City Desk :
Speakers at a participatory discussion stressed the need for ensuring good governance in the local government institutions (LGIs) to make those fully functional, democratic and transparent entities.They viewed that most of the grassroots people are largely dependent on the local government bodies especially Union Parishad and Upazila Parishad to meet up their basic needs so the roles and responsibilities of the union and upazila parishads must be realistic.
The observations came at the fourth advisory committee meeting held at Master Chef Restaurant in Rajshahi on Tuesday. Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation-Bangladesh under its ‘SDC Local Governance Programme-Sharique’ organized the meeting.
Deputy Director of Local Government Dipak Ranjan Adhikary addressed the discussion as focal person while Professor Pronab Kumar Panday from Public Administration Department of Rajshahi University presented a keynote paper on the issue.
In his concept paper discussion, AFM Amir Uddin, Regional Coordinator of the project, gave an overview of the present local government bodies its activities, problems and prospects.
He observed that proper and effective functioning of the Union Digital Center could supplement implementation of the Rights to Information Act at the rural level.
Upazila Chairman Prof Mokbul Hossain, Union Parishad Chairmen Sazzad Hossain Mukul and Hazrat Ali, National Committee Chairman of Campaign for Good Governance Mustafizur Rahman Khan, President of Rajshahi Union of Journalists Akbarul Hassan Millat, Regional Manager of MMC Jahangir Alam Khan, Regional Manager of Prip Trust Saiduzzaman Sipon also spoke. The discussants said all the existing services being delivered towards the grassroots people need to be more coordinated and accelerated.
Many government and non-government organizations are now implementing projects for public welfare. So, there is no alternative to contributing to the empowerment of local citizens through a democratic, transparent, inclusive and effective local government system, they added.
Apart from this, the meeting discussed some key issues including enhancing capacity for women leadership roles in local government institution structures, mobilizing citizens groups to influence their service delivery, mainstreaming pro-poor and pro-women local governance practices and ensuring collaboration and interaction.
They stressed on providing training on tax assessment and collection, financial management and record keeping, participatory planning and budgeting, roles and responsibilities of UPs and UZPs and standing committees and creating strategic planning.
Awareness of local population about their rights, roles and responsibilities and orienting local governance issues to media people and local government institutions need to be focused properly, they opined.
