Why post-autocracy, the local government collapsed like a house of cards

Illustration: TBS

An unprecedented scale of mass disappearance of all mayors of city corporations and more than 1800 'elected representatives' of other local government bodies from public life after the fall of Sheikh Hasina regime has led to the collapse of the local government system like a house of cards.

Their absence from work brought an abrupt halt to service delivery to meet the needs of people compelling the interim government to remove them all in a day by making new legal provisions through ordinances.

This development proves the accusation against Hasina regime that indiscriminate politicisation of the offices of mayors and chairmen of city corporation, municipalities, zila and upazila parishads turned them into extensions of her party to consolidate the powerbase of her regime at grassroots level through them.

To resume the service delivery, the government officials such as divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners (DCs), and upazila nirbahi officers (UNOs) were appointed as administrators to run the local government bodies—city corporations, zilla and upazila parishads.

Their appointments brought an end for the time being to the long standing struggle of powers between civil servants and elected representatives as to which group reigns supreme over the local administration of the government.

All previous governments always tried to maintain a semblance of a balance of power in the local administration by splitting the powers in favour of both groups, ignoring the constitutional provision for local government.

 Dream vs Reality  

Constitutionally the local government, an integral key part of the country's governance, is supposed to plan and carry out local development works in all cities and villages of Bangladesh.

The constitutional provisions speak for empowering local government institutions to maintain public order, prepare and implement the plans on public services and economic development, and they will also be empowered to impose taxes for local purposes and prepare their budgets and maintain funds.

The dream of an effective local government system in line with the constitution still remains elusive.

In reality, to keep the civil bureaucracy happy, none of the governments honoured the constitutional provision.

To have the undue support of the administration for partisan gains such as use of the force to crush opposition and to win the general election, it opted to keep operative in the administration happy from the central to the grassroots levels.

A parallel governance structure has been developed from district and upazila levels across the country led by DCs and UNOs who run the local administration and are being supervised by divisional commissioners who maintain links to the central bureaucracy. The local governance system is highly dominated by the bureaucrats.  

For maintaining law and order a similar structure for police has been developed at district and upazila levels.

Together, they have become the authorities having final say over most key functions in the government's local administration to carry out development works and maintain the law and order.

LGED, a division under the local government ministry, has gradually appeared as the predator of the local government system. Originally, the division was set up to provide local government bodies with technical support for implementation of the development projects planned by them. But later, the division itself has developed as an implementation agency for construction of roads, bridges and culverts in rural Bangladesh.

Therefore, the local government system which is described in the constitution does not exist in reality.

What is left for local government bodies? They are given every year a part of the local development funds to plan and implement some development works. They are given some other jobs such as issuance of some certificates such as birth and character certificate and collection of holding taxes and issuance and renewal of trade licences. Waste management and mosquito control are among the major functions.

Through appointing administrators and assigning some councillors of the city corporations the wheels of service delivery remain moving, but at slow speed.

Such a weak local government system is unprecedented in the region.

What kept the local government crippled?

After independence of Bangladesh, the first attack on the local government came in January 1975 when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, through the fourth constitutional amendment, deleted the local government system as a whole.  

During the two martial law regimes led by Gen Ziaur Rahman and Gen Ershad respectively, the local government system was revived. But both the rulers followed the path of Gen Ayyub Khan and abused the local government bodies to strengthen the muscle of their newly formed political parties and to consolidate their power bases in rural Bangladesh.

The situation took another turn after restoration of democracy after December 1990. The party that won the parliamentary election and formed the government in the centre, opted for using the local government bodies as a means to rehabilitate the party's grassroots level leaders. But the move to empower the local bureaucracy continued.

The situation got worse during the Hasina regime, especially after the one-sided 2014 January elections, which systematically damaged the election system. Except for a few, none of the elections to local government bodies was free and fair. All the offices were grabbed by the local AL leaders in the name of elections.

The local government system has literally turned into an extended branch of the AL at grassroots level. As the size of the economy was on the rise, the allocation for the local government bodies rose too. The AL established absolute control over the system and also on politics in rural Bangladesh.

Allegations of abusing powers, grabbing of state and private properties, extortion, manipulation of contracts, and corruption became rampant. The posts have become attractive means for local AL leaders to control rural politics and get richer and richer. Thus the local government was made of the party, by the party and for the party.

They have become isolated from people and therefore disappeared from public life after the fall of Sheikh Hasina regime on 5 August.

Repairing the system from the wreckage appears to be one of the major challenges for the interim government that announces plans for reforms in local government too.

 Any alternative to a strong local government? No

 Is there any alternative to strengthening the local government system and decentralisation of powers which many advanced and emerging economies have done long ago for better governance and economic growth?

Three urban development specialists of the World Bank – John Roome, Annie Gapihan and Hyunji Lee – in 2019 in their article cited global experience showing that no country in the world has moved up within the middle-income status without developing its cities.

"Most countries that achieved middle-income status did so when the majority of their citizens were living in cities – high-income status is mostly accompanied with 70-80% of people living in cities," the article said.

Bangladesh is currently 38% urban, meaning that the country needs more people moving to urban centres and to make fast-growing cities liveable and productive to make sure that gains of urbanisation are shared by all.

The fact is a country without a strong local government can not have well planned and developed cities. Excessive centralisation of powers ultimately results in chaos in the entire governance, causing enormous sufferings for people and the economy. Bangladesh is a glaring example.     

Unplanned and unequal development policy over the years turned Dhaka into a centre for everything – from politics to power, administration, business, education, health care. Other cities and towns remained forgotten and offered poor economic opportunities.

But for a big boost to economic growth, the local government needs to be dynamic as seen in other developed and emerging economies across the world.

The successive governments in the run up to the parliamentary elections had highlighted the importance of the local government too and made many holy promises. 

Take the case of the immediate party now ousted from power. In the 2008 election, its election manifesto promised to strengthen the local government institutions to turn the small towns and cities into economic growth centres.

But when the party was in power, it forgot the promise.    

In the second consecutive governments of Hasina, the ex finance minister AMA Muhith was a lone ranger as he, in some of his budget speeches, had kept focusing on the need for a strong local government for better economic growth.

In FY 2017 budget speech, he said the poor state of local governance remains a major impediment to governance in the country. "It would be difficult to infuse dynamism in development initiatives to achieve 10 percent GDP growth unless an enabling environment is created by devolving power," he stated.

But his repeated call always fell flat. Neither the government nor the MPs were interested in empowering the local government bodies with complete jurisdiction over development activities in their areas.  

The ultimate result is that Bangladesh is dealing with the detritus of a crooked system after the fall of the despotic Hasina regime.