A baseline study on upazila governance projects has found that undue intervention by MPs is not the only reason behind ineffective upazila parishads, and pointed out that bureaucratic control over the departments was equally to blame.
The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies research pointed out that executive officers of the upazilas form as many committees as they want comprised of public servants. These committees are put in charge of executing development works, bypassing the elected upazila council, which is supposed to execute the decisions on development works.
Headed by the elected chairman, the upazila council is comprised of the vice chairmen, the chairmen of all union councils under the upazila and heads of the 17 government departments. The public servants have no voting rights.
Similarly, 17 supervisory standing committees, headed by the elected vice chairmen of the upazila councils, have become meaningless as officials do not even turn up at the meetings.
Every upazila council has standing committees on each of the 17 government departments placed under the local government body. The upazila vice chairmen, one female and one male, head the standing committees that report to the upazila council.
“In most of the cases, the local MP makes the major decisions in the upazila parishad meetings, going beyond their advisory role, which creates tension between upazila representatives and the local MP. In some cases, UNOs [Upazila Nirbahi Officers] dominate,” says the study, which will be presented to the government next week.
The report says standing committees on line departments headed by the upazila women vice chairs are not active because these departments are run by the departmental committees headed by the UNOs.
The study suggested that the departmental committees be brought under the upazila council to ensure transparency and accountability of the bureaucrats.
“The UNOs form as many departmental committees as they want and head all of them. In one case, the UNO formed 81 department committees to implement some decisions,” said Prof Tofail Ahmed, who had been associated with the study.
He said the UNO in most of the cases could not hold meetings of the committees he headed. “So, we have recommended that the government place many duties under the upazila council.”
He said the supervisory standing committees were too ineffective.
“As the council itself is ineffective, so are the standing committees,” said Harunur Rashid Howlader, the president of a faction of the upazila chairmen.
“The bureaucrats are hugely responsible for making the council meaningless,” he said.
Howlader said the departmental officers did not bother about the elected chairmen or the council because they were accountable only to the UNO.
“The standing committees on each of the departments cannot hold meetings as the officers do not turn up. Why should they come?” said Iqbal Mahmud Sabuj, the chairman of the Sreepur upazila of Gazipur.
“They can hurl abusive words and assault if they want. We have no work,” said Sabuj.
