The New Nation - Internet Edition

Md. Masum Billah

Of recent the clamour for making the local government strong and powerful has arisen from various corners and avenues. Many intellectuals and political analysts have opined that a strong local government could have faced the wrath of Sidr successfully. An expatriate columnist named Tayeb Husain has depicted a picture of local government of Sweden and suggested to form a strong local government in Bangladesh as well following the model and his suggestion has appeared in a vernacular daily on November 24 issue under the caption "Strong local government imperative for development." I also strongly support making the local government strong and powerful. Even then, I like to add some pragmatic points.

The writer says that our lowest tier of local government is Union Parishad which is the most neglected and most inefficient tier till today. The writer has vehemently suggested making this tier of local government much more effective and strong. It's a very good and convincing proposal and argument. He has suggested to make the Union Parishad responsible for primary and middle school education, healthcare, law and order, housing, care for the destitute and employment of men or women. He also suggested that Union Parishad should act as a primary court of justice and all local disputes shall be mitigated in this court. There should even be a small police force (3 or4 police men) and a jail in the Union Parishad . The DC or Upazila officer shall have no function whatsoever, and these post may be dissolved as soon as possible. To co-ordinate activities of the central government and the Union Parishad a coordination office can be established at district or divisional level.

I think Union Parishad should be allowed to look after only the service sectors. They must not interfere in the education matters. As public representatives at the local level are not educated, they don't understand the value of education. At present the school managing committee of secondary level employ the most inefficient teachers either on political ground or on taking bribe. It's a very sad experience. I asked some education specialists of Great Britain who told me that their local government is strong enough but they don't interfere in the education affairs of local schools. The standing law regarding education and the decision of the teaching staff and the institutional head will determine the modus operandi of educational institutions . The students who are not allowed in the test examination, teachers are forced by the local party touts to send them to sit for the board examination. As a result, they fail on mass in the examination and students don't dedicate themselves to study as they see these bad examples. So, the matter of education must not be allowed to deal with by the local government. Already teachers are exacerbated by the school managing committee who are usually uneducated people.

Teacher's job must be nationalised. If they think of satisfying the local authorities according to their sweet will or evil motif, they never can give proper education to the students. Yes, if the job of a teacher is not satisfactory enough, the institutional head will decide whether he/she should be transferred or not. But there must be good relation with the teachers with the local government bodies, in no way they will be allowed to interfere in the education affairs of the schools. Many of our public representatives are neither educated nor free from greed. Whenever, they will be involved in education matter, they introduce corruption, serious corruption. Their involvement in education matters must not be entertained in any way. We have already done a serious loss to our education sector due to the politician's involvement in education matters. Union Parishad will maintain good communication with the heads of institutions to ensure whether all the school affairs are going smoothly.

The writer also suggested that three or four police force will be under the Union Parshid Chairman. The intention and proposal of the write is very good but the practical phenomena of our village politics will make it a boomerang. Usually village touts are chairman and members. With some rare exceptions, most of them are corrupt people, they will hold the power of commanding police force will simply be a misuse of state police force and they will use it only for their own ends creating serious chaos in the locality. The impersonal use of police force even fails to maintain law and order situation and many innocent people get arrested, if it goes with local touts it will definitively be a serious blunder. Union Parishad already holds Chawkiders/village defense to guard the villages without any tangible result.

President Ershad, maybe, with some good intentions introduced Upazila Parishad but it did not work well. The judicial departments have been brought back to the district level again having some bad and sad experiences. Yes, all the local governments will be formed mainly to boost up economic development of the locality, not to poke their nose in the established order of the state. They must not wait for the money sanctioned from the central government and the local governments will take the responsibility of disbursing it. Local government will be formed with those kind of people who will take the initiative to establish local industries, boost up agricultural productions, fisheries, livestock and poultry farming and try practically to change the lot of the common men of their localities. Poor government cannot afford to send enough money and the local government waits only to distribute the money. It should not be the affairs of the local government. They must find out the potential sources and introduce ways and means to fatten the financial matters of the locality.

Union Parishad or Upazila Parshied whatever tier may be the local government, the local political touts occupy the field where innocent, educated and real patriotic people hardly gather. Educated sections and rising educated sections I mean students will be discouraged to see that all the power and responsibilities go with those who are not educated but touts. They will lose interest to dedicate themselves to study further. Our nation still bears the brunt of this kind of mistake. Many students leaders become billionaire without studying whereas the first class holders keep both end meet in the service life. Not only that, in a Upazila there are so many first class gazetted officers who will not be interested to work under the command of local touts. Our society has not yet reached upto that level of sophistication that the local governments will see angel like people who will change the whole society by dedicating themselves to social welfare activities. Local leaders remain surrounded by local touts and polecat goons and petty mastanss where all sorts of good intention get buried.

Health service is provided in hospitals where educated people I mean doctors work. In each upazila there remains a big health complex and each health complex sees several doctors who are first class officers. If a union parishad chairman or a Upazila chairman determines the hospital affairs, it will not work smoothly. To look into the affairs of the doctors a committee comprised of higher government officials along with local aristocrats can be formed.

All the local movements shall remain mainly responsible to boost up local economy. Whoever has power and money will compete in the local government election must not be entertained . A particular education background and some evidences of social work must make a candidate eligible for competing in the local government election. In the name of making local government strong and powerful a healthy society can never allow the political goons , greedy people and local touts to dominate the society.

The writer has proposed to abolish the post of DC and Upazila Nirbahi Officer. How impractical proposal it is! Can a ministry run without a secretary? Only minister is enough to run the ministry? Deputy Commissioner, a non-political employee of the republic, shoulders many many big and important responsibilities of the district. Government and the ministries maintain all sorts of district level administrative affairs through the DCs. And as a member of cadre service they hold the capability and strength to do these affairs very smoothly and efficiently which cannot be done by party goons or local touts. As still clean and educated people hardly come to politics particularly in local politics, we cannot afford to hold this sort of opinion .

Local government will co-ordinate with the local government officials. If they know how to coordinate and monitor the local affairs effectively, it will work a lot. They need not hold executive power as the writer proposes.

(The writer works as a specialist in Brac Education Programme, PACE, BRAC Head Office, Dhaka.)