City government debate

City Corporations (CC) or municipalities are responsible for providing urban services to the dwellers. So far what we have seen is that neither CC nor municipalities have been successful in providing adequate services to the citizens. There are many obstacles we can identify which hinder providing services to the city dwellers.

Let's move onto the CG debate. Six of the largest municipalities namely Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi , Sylhet and Barisal have been given metropolitan status and are termed as CC. For many years these cites were run and headed by nominated rather than elected Mayor. Metropolitan cities have been experiencing elected Mayor since 1994.

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To me CG itself would not solve the problems that Dhaka and other metropolitan cities are facing. CC has been ineffectual in providing urban services they are responsible for. The main problem facing all these cities is corruption, which has engulfed our society at large. Let's look at some emerging problems.

Solid waste management is one of the responsibilities of CC. In Dhaka city, more than 50 percent of the solid waste remains uncollected and is mostly dumped on the roadside and into drains creating enormous public health hazard. Other cities are no exception. One can argue that CC lacks resources and adequate equipment to dispose of the solid waste. This is absolutely true. But one can also argue that the CC has not been successful in harnessing the resources they have at their disposal to the full. The answer is no. Involvement of private sector, NGOs and community people in the solid waste management could have yielded better results. Although few private sector groups and NGOs are seen working in a few CCs, unfortunately, the dismal condition of the solid waste in the cities in general and in the poor community in particular have not marked any significant improvement.

Another problem which the city dwellers are facing, has to do with drainage for which CC is responsible. Most of the drains are in dilapidated conditions due to lack of maintenance. During the rainy season, cities are flooded with the sudden downpour and there is serious water logging in the drainage systems. Most of the drains used as dumping as well defecation places are not cleaned regularly. Thus these drain serve as the ideal place for mosquito breeding. Lack of proper maintenance and shortage of drains have also compounded the drainage problems in cities.

Recently the most discussed issue in the news media has been the public health, which is at stake due to unhygienic food served in the hotels and restaurants. In the CC, there is a department to look at this issue. The most disappointing aspect is that sanitary inspectors who are assigned to look into food hygiene have totally failed to do their job. Recently newspaper reports stated that most of the inspectors are won over by nice food or bribe from the unscrupulous hotel or restaurant operators. Public health has been compromised with corruption. The punishment for making unhygienic food is also so meager that the perpetrators do not bother about food hygiene.

Let's move on to the taxation system, which is vital for urban economy. Common to most of the CCs is the budget deficit. The ineptness of the CCs in mobilizing local resources has trigged their dependency on the central government and the grants from donor agencies. The existing taxation system in CCs is very old and operated manually, which invites corruption. Only in the recent past Rajshahi City Corporation has overhauled their taxation systems using computerized database where there is very limited scope for corruption. Other cities could replicate the Rajshahi experience.

Many cities in the world where no CG exists have been successful tin meeting the demands of city dwellers by practicing good governance. City governance or urban governance is a system of relationships between different stakeholders to achieve the collective goal be it social, economic, environmental etc. using the city government as the instrument. Urban governance, which is characterized by multi-levels such as national, regional, local and community, goes beyond the urban government.

Before demanding City Government we need to rethink the issues of urban governance. Bad governance, which has blighted our urban life, needs to be replaced with good governance. Along with drastic institutional reforms, practice of good governance might bring tangible results in ensuring sustainable urban development in Bangladesh. Otherwise establishing City Government will not help relieve the dwellers of their sufferings. Once the CCs make remarkable performance in urban governance, then we can think of creating City Government.

The write is a Post-Graduate student at the Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.