Repeated absence of LGRD Minister Syed Asharful Islam and his deputy Jahangir Kabir Nanak angered the members of the watchdog body on the ministry, which Thursday decided to hold no further meetings unless they confirmed their presence in the next meeting.
The Rules of Procedure of parliament does not allow any member and the ministers, who are ex officio members of the parliamentary standing committees, to skip more than two meetings without informing the chairmen concerned.
Absence from three consecutive meetings authorises the watchdog to expel any of its members no matter whether they are ministers or lawmakers.
But the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on local government and cooperatives, Rahmat Ali, who was a colleague of Syed Ashraf’s father Syed Nazrul Islam, did not initiate any move to replace the truant ministers.
The committee members yesterday postponed its 53rd meeting for the third time as Ashraf and Nanak were absent.
“What is the meaning of holding meetings without the ministers? We will not hold any meeting in the rest of our tenure unless the ministers guarantee their presence,” Rahmat Ali, the committee chairman, told the Dhaka Tribune.
“The members are not happy,” he said.
Parliament records show Ashraf attended 17 of the 55 meetings of the committee. He last attended the 48th meeting on May 10 last year.
Nanak attended 36 meetings, the last one on April 11 this year.
“The role of the committee is to ensure transparency and accountability of the ministries. Is it possible to guarantee that without the ministers’ presence?” Abul Khayer Bhuiyan, the only representative of the main opposition BNP in the 10-member body, said.
The members first sat for the 53rd meeting on January 30. They had to reschedule the meeting for April 11 as the two ministers were absent. But on that day only Nanak showed up.
The members postponed the meeting again until yesterday.
Asked about their absence, local government Secretary Abu Alam Shahid Khan told the meeting that he had no authority to ensure their presence, committee members said.
At the 46th meeting on April 4, the members, mainly from the Awami League, decided to recommend dissolving the “ineffective” watchdog body if the ministers did not turn up at the next meeting on April 25.
Even the secretaries for the Local Government Division and the Rural Development Division did not attend the April 4 meeting.
Syed Ashraf later met committee members at Chairman Rahmat Ali’s office and assured them of attending the 48th meeting on May 10.
He started boycotting the meetings again after that meeting.