Editorial
Giving MPs a development role in upazilas!
We urge the PM not to go for it
The reported mulling by LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam over formally empowering the MPs with a developmental role in the upazilas originally designed to play a pivotal role in the local government system has come as a big surprise and shock. The implication is that the amended ordinance whereby the previously assigned advisory and development role of MPs in upazilas was withdrawn through an initiative of the caretaker government is sought to be restored through another amendment.
The conflicts that raged between the MPs as advisors to upazilas and the upazila chairmen having severely affected development of the upazilas, the rationale for clipping the MP role was unassailable and so came the reform during caretaker government. Now to revert to status quo ante is entirely inadvisable, against the very spirit and philosophy of local self-government system and, above all, it runs counter to the Awami League's electoral commitment to strengthening the local government institutions.
It won't be an overstatement to say that the MPs looked upon the concept of elected upazila parishads, or for that matter, their chairmen as being adversarial to their position as elected public representatives. That's why it is believed that the upazila system was throttled after its first cycle in 1991 and no further elections could be held in the last 19 years.
There are two reasons, one unstated and the other stated about why the MPs demand a role in upazila development matters. First, the dynamics of formation of government which entail majority support from the MPs foster a sense that perhaps the MPs need to be kept in good humour. To this subjective argument we have to say that their very win owed it to the party ticket. Secondly, the MPs openly demand such a role as if they have earned it by reasoning that in order to fulfil the pledges they had made to their constituencies they should have a developmental role.
The MPs can do a lot of good to the upazilas as elected lawmakers taking interest in legislation touching the interest of their constituencies. Moreover, they can influence the government in and out of the parliament to procure funds, secure projects for the upazilas and thereby accelerate their pace of development. They needn't also rest content with a lawmaking role. For instance, they can pull their weight as standing committee members and even chairmen to serve their respective area interests. Besides, at the party level, MPs are often put in charge of their districts, especially in times of disaster.
Imagine, what would happen to the given autonomy and power of the upazila chairmen, if the MPs with all their links to the PM, ministers and the secretariat are endowed with a codified role in the upazila on the platter! They will simply dominate the upazilas.
Looked at deeply, the MPs' worry that they will be distanced from their constituencies if they are devoid of a developmental role in the upazila is misplaced. Since all of them will be without developmental functions, their frame of reference will be the same in terms of meeting expectations of their constituencies and facing the next election. Let us not also forget, it is the so-called development work that lies at the root of corruption of the MPs.
A final word, we bank on the mandate and moral authority of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to effect the historic decoupling between the lawmaking role of the MPs and their image-sapping demand for development functions at the upazilas.
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