After the shift in power on 5 August, cases have also been filed against many union parishad (UP) chairmen alongside other local public representatives. Because of that, they are not only absent from their works but also have been absconding to escape arrest.
The UP chairmen are directly involved with the disbursement of old-age-allowance, widow-allowance, disabled-allowance and maternity-allowance. While, important tasks like providing succession certificate, character certificate, birth and death registration are also carried out from the union parishad. Additionally, they have a significant role in local development activities as well.
Citing the local government ministry, Prothom Alo reported that 1,416 UP chairmen have been absent from their offices since 5 August, which accounts for one-third of the total union parishads across the country. Most of these chairmen face murder cases and fear of arrest. Some of them avoid going to the office fearing attack.
Why did the situation take this turn? Are there enough evidences to support the cases (most are murder cases) filed against those UP chairmen? The movement against discrimination happened basically in the city areas, which falls within city corporations and pourasavas. Meanwhile, as reported in Prothom Alo that most of these cases are either politically motivated or filed out of personal conflicts.
The interim government has given temporary appointments to government officials in concerning unions to mitigate the crisis. However, that has not been proved to be effective that much.
Prothom Alo correspondents went to quite a few union parishad offices but didn’t find any of the chairmen. In this situation, people seeking services had to wait for hours yet to no avail. Another report from Prothom Alo stated that the work of providing allowance to poor people also remains closed in the absence of the UP chairmen.
The current government has already issued a circular discharging the public representatives from city corporations, municipalities, upazila parishads and zilla parishads of their duties. According to sources concerned, the idea of dismissing the UP chairmen and members is also being contemplated.
However, what will be the result of this decision is also a matter that needs to be considered. Local government expert Tofail Ahmed remarked that appointing administrators would not be the right choice.
The government should first serve a notice to those UP chairmen who are absent and fix a deadline for them to be present at the UP office. The seats should be announced vacant if the chairmen do not appear within the stipulated time and then one of the members from the respective UP can be appointed as the chairman, he added.
Bangladesh Union Parishad Association says that dismissing the union parishads or removing the chairmen would result in a drastic disruption of government services at the marginal level.
Right when a demand of strengthening the local government agencies has been raised from all the quarters, the interim government has turned the country ‘devoid of local government’. It’s true that the recently ousted Awami League government had politicised the local government agencies to an extreme level.
They had resorted to different ill tactics so that candidates from the opposite view or parties could not be elected while the election had turned into an instrument of fulfilling their dreams.
However, burning down the house to kill a rat cannot be a solution. We’ll hope that the local government ministry would take a realistic decision by discussing it with the experts. Nobody has the right to deny the public of services.