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Download PDF Top officials of different government organisations working in the six city corporation areas will be nominated as councillors of the respective corporations for proper coordination of their activities to ensure better service to city dwellers, proposed the draft ordinance on city corporations.
Once the ordinance is promulgated making it a law, chiefs of the organisations dealing with power, gas, water, telecommunications, healthcare, housing and roads and highways, and metropolitan police will be councillors of the respective city corporations—Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet.
As councillors, the government officials will not have voting rights as only elected representatives to the city corporations will have the power to decide on any matters, said the draft ordinance submitted to the chief adviser on Tuesday.
The draft prepared by the high-powered committee on strengthening the local government is intended to replace the existing laws on city corporations. It also proposed to redesignate ward commissioner as ward councillors.
Members of the committee and local government experts believe that once the government organisations are directly involved in the corporations’ activities, it will enable the corporations to improve their services to city dwellers. It will also largely meet the need for metropolitan governments in the city corporations.
Mayors of different city corporations have been demanding formation of metropolitan governments for long to ensure proper coordination among government organisations working in the city corporation areas badly needed to provide services smoothly.
When the draft ordinance becomes law, the city corporations will be empowered to ask the chiefs of government organisations concerned to attend the corporations’ meetings regularly to help make coordinated plans for their activities. The government, if necessary, can nominate other officials as councillors of the corporations in consultation with the respective corporation authorities.
The draft ordinance proposes to provide the mayors authority over local police administration to maintain law and order in the corporation areas.
It provides that police officials will immediately inform the mayors or chief executive officers or secretaries of city corporations about any criminal activities or attempts to commit crimes in their respective areas. They will also act on written directives from the mayors or chief executive officers or secretaries concerned, said the proposed ordinance.
For this metropolitan police commissioners should be made councillors of the corporations, it said.
The draft provides for no-confidence motion against a mayor on grounds of his or her failure to properly discharge the responsibilities.
And each ward councillor will have to make public development plan for the area seeking locals’ opinions on the plan.
The draft ordinance also proposed re-fixing the ceiling of election expenditure on the basis of voters in the city corporations. A mayoral candidate for Dhaka City Corporation should be allowed to spend a maximum of Tk 5 lakh for electioneering, for Chittagong City Corporation Tk 3 lakh and for the four other city corporations Tk 2 lakh each, it said.
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