For sustainable and sound functioning of city corporations “It is an ominous signal to me and of course to the Awami League,” says Finance Minister. It is for all purposes a wake–up call, if not a referendum against government. Nevertheless, it is the victory of democracy practiced in Bangladesh. These are some views /comments as expressed by many since the election of 4 city corporations. All four candidates supported by opposition 18 party alliances have won the city corporation mayoral elections of Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet and Barisal with a large margin of votes over their rival candidates backed by 14 party alliances. Besides, out of 116 Councilors in total, BNP backed candidates won 75 seats, Awami League 31 and independent candidates occupied 10 seats of councilors indicating 65% of the seats went in favor of BNP. Public at large have expressed satisfaction about the election since they could cast their votes freely in a democratic environment. The city polls proved the possibility of free and fair 10th National Parliamentary election under the partisan government and thus the demand for caretaker government sustains no longer. On the other hand, the opposition claimed that landsides victory of opposition-backed candidates justified people demand for the Care-Taker Government. Besides, the defeat of Awami League supported candidates indicated that people gave their verdict against the government’s misdeeds, unjust, repression and corruption through this poll. Thus, this election result of 4 city corporations became a very hot debatable issue across the nation. In reality, mayors, councilors and councilors of reserved seats, who gained voters’ confidence to come out as winners surely convinced their electorates with pledges to bring substantial changes in providing services to the city dwellers and make their lives more comfortable in coming days with significant improvement making the city clean and green. They possibly assured voters about the sustainability of city corporations financially and administratively with total eradication of corruption and any type of discrimination on their drive to ensure development. Sustainability is the capacity to endure. Sustainability requires the reconciliation of environmental, social and economic demands. Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own demands. The critical issue is to examine the financial capacity of City Corporation to provide services and ensure development activities as required under law regulating the city Corporations or municipalities. The Schedule Third of the Rule 41 of the Local Government (City Corporation) Act 2009 has entrusted the City Corporation with 125 types of duties under 28 major heads like public health, death and birth registration, water supply, slaughterhouses, dead bodies disposal, construction of public thoroughfare, public safety, park and recreation, education and culture, social welfare etc. On the other hand, only 26 types of resource base are earmarked for collecting revenue like holdings taxes, rates and fees, conservancy rate, rent and fees from market, lease money etc. People living at slums (nearly 33% in DCC ) are outside tax network since City Corporations consider them as unauthorized occupants. Lack of transparency in assessment, weak collection efficiency, low level of service cost recovery and unstable grants from government are major impediments towards sustainability of city corporations. A City Corporation can hardly mobilize its resources up to 50% to 60% from holding taxes and other fees as their source of own revenue. Low level of service cost recovery became major hurdles to meet the needs of primary health care, conservancy, sewerage, food safety, street lighting etc. Dhaka City Corporation could recover service cost only Tk.140 million from primary solid waste collection charges as against their spending of Tk. 600 millions in a year. In the year 2001, Dhaka City Corporation collected holding tax from 1,80,000 households as against 11.00 lakhs households assessed for taxes. A city corporation is a statutory urban local boy with perpetual succession with its own seal that can sue or be sued in its own name. It can acquire property moveable and immoveable, retain, transfer and proceed legally. There is little symptom that a city corporation can decide its modus operandi independently. Unfortunately, these urban local bodies are dependent on central government for financial support and administrative sanctions on many issues including the approval of their organogram, etc. City corporations and municipalities cannot revise their rates, taxes, fees, or even small charges without the clearance from the relevant Ministry or Division. An urban local body could be superseded in case a Mayor or Councilor does not behave properly as per expectation of the central government. How can an urban local body claim to emerge as sustainable in the absence significant delegation of authority? There are at present 11 city corporations and 318 Municipalities in the country. Most of them are not economically self-reliant and dependent on the grants and block allocations from the central government. Due to resource constraints as well as lack of transparency and accountability to the taxpayers, the efforts to attain sustainability appear to be invisible. Inadequate trained manpower, weak monitoring of the central government, made the situation worse. To gain the popularity, even by breaking law, councilors remain reluctant to support the raising of taxes or impose new taxes. Thus, the revenue base suffers from stagnancy to keep pace with the needs of increasing urban population. There should be major reformation in the municipal finance system. An Accrual Double Entry Accounting system should be introduced in all city corporations supported with computerization in the assessment of taxes and payment procedure. The culture of tax exemption on review by the mayor should be discontinued and performance based targeted grants mechanism to be made effective in place of block allocation in practice at present. There should be a grievance redress committee and every city corporation should constitute a coordination committee represented by stakeholders. The urban population growth in Bangladesh is around 5 % as against the national growth rate of 1.37 % creating massive demand for investment in urban areas in near future. As present, around 28 % of the population are living urban areas that might reach to 50:50 by 2040 AD. Dhaka City (North and South) might be 4th largest densely populated city in the world by 2025 as per estimate of UN Population Division. The inadequate presence of central government with more investment and reformatory measures during last few years was also a major factor for the debacle of party in power in the election of the four city corporations. Besides, the bifurcation of Dhaka City Corporation has generated resentment that encouraged mismanagement. Thus, the central government must invest remarkably in terms of infrastructure development and financial reformations to make City Corporations sustainable in order to address challenging issues linked to urbanization. The writer is a former Secretary to the Government
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 19:28:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015