The 6th upazila parishad election is knocking at the door. The voting will be held in nearly 450 upazilas across the country in phases from 4 May. Local government institutions, the city corporation, union parishad and municipality elections will be held in turns.
The upazila parishad could work for 25 years between 1981 and 2024 as the activities of upazila parishad remained halted for nearly 20 years. This local government body does not work in accordance with its law. The government departments and officials do not follow rules of the parishad. The fund of the government departments is not transferred to the fund of the parishad.
But that was done from 1981 to 1991. For 10 years (during the Ershad period), the parishad did not have any secretary, plan and finance and budget officer.
There are more issues related to administration, plan and finance. As review and assessment over the issues were not carried out year after years, no necessary remedy could be found. There are no elected members in the parishad, but only a chairman and two vice chairmen.
What are the duties of two vice chairmen or what are the necessities of two vice chairmen without any members of the parishad of its own? The posts of chairman and vice chairmen are not permanent, rather part-time. Many of the chairmen live and do business in Dhaka. They go to the parishad office at a suitable time in a month.
If the chairman is the chief executive officer in the upazila parishad, he cannot remain absent in the upazila parishad for long.
Most of the upazila chairmen are senior politicians. They are experts in various activities including mobilising the people, organising meetings and realising demands. But as a chief executive, he does not have necessary education and training to lead around 1,500 officials of 24-25 government departments. He does not have a clear concept of the services of these departments. Many upazila chairman want settlement of all files or documents through them but they do not have the patience to read those files and make decisions.
The chairmen of the upazilas want to write an ACR (annual confidential report) of the officials of the parishad but law has not given them that jurisdiction. According to the law, an upazila chairman could write the annual performance report (APR) of the officials. It is unfortunate that none of the chairmen has written any APR in the last 25 years. The government astonishingly remains silent in this regard. None including the deputy commissioners, the divisional commissioners, local government ministry and the cabinet sought any answer in this regard. The officials have been promoted without any APR.
No consistent and planned initiative is seen in governments and political parties, to develop political leaders as 'political administrators.' The initiative is required particularly for union, upazila, zilla parishad chairmen, and all mayors. They need to understand government laws, special planning, finance, audit, and administrative discipline. In an important office, it needs to maintain management, time, discipline and culture. These require training and practice.
Upazila parishad is an important administrative office. A minister looks after the office of a particular issue, while an upazila chairman works with different officers of 24 ministries or departments. Although it is possible to sit in the chair by succeeding in the highly-contested elections, it requires a huge effort to handle all the responsibilities in an efficient way.
The job is difficult, but not impossible at all. It requires openness, a learning mindset, and a commitment to the position. They remain vocal for availing the position, protocol, and associated privileges, but their interest in the legal and moral obligations of carrying out the duties of that post is almost nil. The upazila parishad will not develop as a strong good governance and service system if this inconsistency is not positively addressed.
Let me conclude with another serious structural inconsistency. The upazila parishad as a 'public executive body' is a burning cauldron of fierce conflict. Here, five conflicts are active simultaneously. The contending parties are briefly as follows: chairman and MP, chairman and chief executive officer (UNO) of the parishad, chairman and two vice-chairmen, chairmen of upazila parishad and union parishad and municipality mayor, CEO of upazila parishad and other assigned and non-assigned officers.
The chief executive officer of the parishad, who is known as UNO, maintains a dual entity – the local supervisory officer of the central government's regulatory affairs and the chief executive officer of the upazila parishad. The position holder is under two formal and one informal supervising authorities.
The official controller is a deputy commissioner and an upazila parishad chairman, while the unofficial supervisor is the local parliamentarian. Without going for any analysis, I will say how healthy this system is for the administration! A government official cannot have three controllers and two entities. I do not believe that the government does not understand this simple fact. But no one is taking responsibility and solving the problem.
* This op-ed was originally published in the print and online editions of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam and Misbahul Haque