Reform agenda ignored due to politicians' disregard: Tofail Ahmed
“Ideally, parties should have been engaging their academic and expert members to shape reform frameworks. Instead, the commission itself is having to knock on politicians’ doors with the reports,” he said
Important reform issues are slipping off the discussion agenda due to politicians' disregard as political parties showed no interest when the commission's reports were finalised, Local Government Reform Commission Chairman Tofail Ahmed said today (11 May).
"Ideally, parties should have been engaging their academic and expert members to shape reform frameworks. Instead, the commission itself is having to knock on politicians' doors with the reports," he said.
He made the remarks at a roundtable titled "Spatial Planning for Urban and Rural Development: Agenda for Reform Towards Transition", held on the second day of the 4th International Conference on Urban and Regional Planning (ICURP) 2025, hosted by the Bangladesh Institute of Planners (BIP) at CIRDAP.
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Tofail said, "Six commission reports have been submitted, and the remaining ones will not be discussed at all. The reports we've submitted will not be discussed in the next 4-5 months. Reform's fate does not favour Bangladesh."
On reforming the local government, he said, "The functions of local agencies are controlled by the central government. The education staff, funding – everything is in the hands of the central government, but the responsibility lies with the upazila administration. The same applies to hospitals."
He also mentioned, "We've recommended district planning. We don't even know how much budget is allocated to a district. We've suggested that this be made clear to the public."
