Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
The local government in the political system of Bangladesh operates at three levels: metropolitan, urban and rural-local. The potentials of local governance can be reflected when participation at the local level writs large in (a) ‘planning and implementation of projects (b) supervision of educational institutions, hospitals and other government financed units (c) mobilization of support for new initiatives like campaign against dowry, child labour etc. (d) enforcement of laws regarding gender discrimination, violence against women, environmental protection (e) mobilization of resources in the form of taxes, fees, tolls etc. (f) holding LG institutions accountable to the community (g) sensitizing the community making it vigilant and active ensuring transparency and responsiveness of LG institutions .’ ‘Local government is a vital organization for managing local economy and development and consolidating the democracy at the sub-national and grassroots level of any country. It is an integral part of the central government of a country, recognized or created under law for the management of local affairs of a human settlement, promoting pro-people and participatory development at the field level. Capable local institution is deemed as one of the fundamental pre-requisites for sustainable development of the country, which can share and promote people’s urge, aspiration and wisdom’ (Sarker 2001). “In a general sense, local government is as the formulation and execution of collective action at the grassroots level designed by the central government. ‘Local government refers to a political subdivision of national or state which is constituted by law and has substantial control of local affairs including the power of imposing taxes, exact labor for proscribed purposes. The governing body of such an entity is elected or locally selected. According to encyclopedia of Social Science, ‘Local self-government is the government which has a territorial non-sovereign community, having or possessing the legal right to impose taxes and use of it and the necessary organization to regulate its own affairs.” (Sarker 2001).
Local government with rural institutions responsive to public demands are well linked to the institutions like nation building departments at the intermediary level and non-governmental organizations through the ties of development relationship. As a matter of fact the institutions that lie beyond village boundary have been created to administer rural development in collaboration with indigenous institutions, representative organizations and other operating structures.
In a nutshell micro level institutional intervention is supportive of rural prosperity and modernization. Viewed in this perspective local governance is tantamount to proper direction of development administration at the micro level through organizational and promotional activities of three sets of institutions:
a. Community organizations at the village level (micro political institutions)
b. Rural local self government at the union and upazilla parishad level
c. Several public promotional institutions and non-governmental organizations.
There has been an endless guest for good governance at the local point. Given the nature of the state initiative for local governance reforms is same as flogging dead horse. State bureaucracy desires changes within its own prescription and the governing class that dominates the ‘local state’ would resist any reform that would jeopardize status-quo. In the recent past democratic government cared little about decentralization?
As a result local-self government could not receive proper nourishment. The central power axis resorted to massive politicization that ruined the character of local government. The field bureaucracy continued to exercise leverage over local institutions as a crucial variable in development intervention. It served the interest of the local conglomerates that came to constitute a governing class benefiting much from the wave of politicization. The governing class used available institutions as strategic resources for concentration of wealth.
It should not surprise if the rural development programs have a tilt in favor of the ruling class on whose support they are dependent for their proper implementation. The generic feature of the rural development experimentation is the fact that development activities are biased towards the ruling class whose cooperation is considered a sin-quo-non-for fulfilling the twin objectives of growth and societal integration. As a result the issue of rural poverty, inequality, and exploitation remain sidetracked in reality. In the study areas patronize resources in the rural institutions dominated by the ruling elites are responsible for lopsided participation in development, elite conflict and the lack of growth. Likewise they tend to generate wrath suspicion and discontent among the dispossessed. There has been overlapping of the elites in all decision-making institutions (village council, cooperative, union parishad, and various development committees). They decide upon diverse development issues and grievances maintaining liaison with the development officials who are giving extension and promotional services. In the process of manipulation the proportion of rural elites making use of extension services and obtaining access to other resources of patronize keeps on remaining high. As the distribution of resources meant for development projects is routed through the elites, the cases of corruption and misdistribution are obvious (Mashreque, 2002).
Governance by implications involves input from service oriented promotional activities within the organizational context. It demands an orderly institutional arrangement with built in mechanism providing genesis for social mobilization.
Within this research purview administration in rural communities is to be studied as institutional intervention intended to utilize development potentials for real prosperity and social advancement. It is not wrong to say that thinking development administration rationally conscientizing the downtrodden masses of the vast rural terrain will set the traditional villages, staggering with barrenness into motion.
In the realm of development the roles of community organization like loosely structured internal administration, cooperative, union parishad and the upazilla parishad deserve mention. These on going structures operate at the micro level to mobilize potential rural resources both human and materials. Governance necessitates patterned participation among these structures, representative organizations and other operating structures.
The performance of the parishad overtime is deplorable. The poor performance with a seemingly sterile political leadership indicates that UP local institution is not properly empowered to give way to a vibrant political leadership. Any attempt to undermine the status of Upazila lies in contradiction with the electoral pledge for creating a strong local government.
There are reports that UNO control all parishad functions with the support of the central government. MPs -the advisors of the parishad– have been ‘controlling many local development activities engaging their party people to ensure their stronghold in the areas. “Upazila executive officers and MPs are controlling everything including administrative and development work. Even the government carries out all its correspondence with the Upazila executive officers.” The UP chairman has nothing to do under the circumstances excepting aspiring for modern infrastructural facilities including Pajero jeep. The elected chairman and vice -chairman just go to their offices spending some time and then leave. They do not have anything specific to do even without file to dispose of. The situation, as such, is humiliating for the elected representatives whose role is necessary for making UP effective for public welfare. They cannot let it go unchallenged thinking to launch an agitation for ‘an effective Upazila parishad’.
Even election pledges in this respect have not been fulfilled by the democratic government. . Practically local government has not been sufficiently autonomous with poor financial resources and taxation base. A recent study conducted by BARD resource persons reveled that ‘lack of autonomy is observed in the areas of staff appointment and transfer, project implementation, budget preparation, use of revenues collected from local sources and use of ADP block grant.’ The Upazila parishad do not have enough funds to meet the recurring expenditure like salary and emoluments of the official staff including reimbursement of the bill in connection with site regular site visits and inspections. Upazila bureaucracy as field administration consisting of gazetted officers and staff is vertically connected with central government offices. Field level officers are accountable to their respective higher authorities that control their salary, promotion and transfer according to service rule.
An insensitive local leadership only nourishing self and coterie interests and engaging in factional squabbling is not expected to invoke villagers’ participation in development. It is not capable of contributing to the strengthening of upazila parishad. National political elites including MPs do not bother to articulate the need for the provision of democratic institutions at the local level through empowerment of upazila parishad. The terribly bad shaped democratic institutions plagued by internal strife, impotence and split enables the bureaucracy to gain stranglehold over local institutions. Relative autonomy is used only to resolve internal contradictions and manage manifold crises in intriguing issues of development to serve information needs about local situation. As a matter of fact the recent dynamics of rural development under bureaucratically shaped institutional arrangement hints much about misdirected local governance.
As per electoral pledges local government needs to be empowered with a strong upazila parishad. Only then there will be the possibility of mobilizing resources not only for administration of development bur also for combating climate change. Thinking rural development governance in the original upazila way is the need of the hour.
Devolution should underpin autonomous local governance. Distressingly upazila parishad is now in a state of emasculation. This runs counter to electoral pledge about strengthening local government with upazila parishad ‘being a pivotal factor in’ democratic local self-government. What is outrageous is a ‘deliberate undermining of public representatives elected to the office by popular mandate.’ There are allegations about supervision of upazila development activities’ and reluctance of UNO to work under upazila chairman. There has been a suggestion that ‘Deputy magistrate be given the power to dismiss upazila parishads’ if it is dictated that upazila is not working to their satisfaction.
Both urban and rural citizens faced score of problems urging the concerned bodies to address them properly. During periodic local level elections the contenders promise to steer clear of all nagging problems. Both the major contenders approached the voters with a list of electoral pledges. On the eve of 2010 city elections Nagarik Committee backing ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury presented an election manifesto with a long list of priorities and Chittagong Unnayan Andalan supporting Manjurul Alam placed 15-point development agenda. New component added to Nagarik Committee agenda was IT village and digital Chittagong and city government. Chittagong Unnayan Andalan emphasized among others: combating water logging, traffic jam and a host of welfare measure putting the poor first.
(To be continued)
