Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee
Political governments have reserved the local government, rural development and cooperatives portfolio for the general secretary of the party in power, a tradition which experts believe is meant for tightening the ruling party's grip on the grassroots.
The ruling clique uses the vital ministry as a tool to reward the party rank and file down to villages and fortify its support base through manipulating development schemes, they point out.
The party in power feels it safe to entrust the general secretary, the second man in a party, with the LGRD ministry job with twin purposes — implementing the government's rural development agenda and benefiting the root-level party activists using executive power and public fund.
The trend started even before the country's return to parliamentary democracy in 1991, as military dictator HM Ershad's Jatiya Party pressed two secretaries general Shah Moazzem and Najiur Rahman Manjur into the LGRD ministry. Both of them served a brief one-year term between 1986 and 1990, the year that marked the fall of Ershad through a mass upsurge.
None of the LGRD ministers surrendered their party post after getting the responsibility of the vital ministry and throughout their tenures they continued the dual role. While they used the whole machinery to boost the party's grassroots support, the ruling parties ultimately suffered organizationally as fortunate few got the benefit and others felt deprived, leading to internal dissatisfactions, analysts and party insiders said.
Organisational weakness of the ruling parties is evident in their failure to counter the opposition politically towards the end of tenure and subsequent election defeat just after one term, they pointed out.
'As the activities of the LGRD ministry are spread down to union and village levels, the ruling party always appointed its general secretary to this ministry to patronise party men. The ruling party always uses this ministry for strengthening their root-level activities,' said Professor Muzaffer Ahmad, former chairman of Transparency International-Bangladesh trustee board.
The most vital organ of the ministry is Local Government Engineering Department, which implements different infrastructure projects in the rural and urban areas round the year. Its activities include construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation and development of roads, bridges, culverts, small water resources, growth centres, rural markets, Union Parishad buildings, cyclone/flood shelters, bus terminals and municipal markets.
The ministry runs its activities through Rural Development & Cooperative Division, Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development, Department of Cooperatives, Bangladesh Rural Development Board, Local Government Division, LGED as well as six city corporations.
Muzaffer, also president of the Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon (BAPA), said appointing general secretary as LGRD minister has become a tradition since the independence of the country.
'This tradition should be stopped for the sake of strengthening the local government system. Every political party promised to strengthen the local government but after assuming power they forgot their pledge,' he said.
If the local government is strengthened and given autonomy, then the LGRD ministry will lose its relevance as an absolute power base and the ruling party will then lose interest in using the ministry for party purpose through putting the general secretary at its helm, the senior economics professor felt.
Former adviser to interim government and chairman of the Regulatory Reforms Commission Dr Akbar Ali Khan said every political government appointed the general secretary of the ruling party as the LGRD minister aiming to coordinate party's grassroots leaders and activists.
'It is helpful for the party in power if its general secretary is made LGRD minister as he can communicate with its local level leaders and fulfill the desires of the party's grassroots leaders,' he said.
During the BNP's first regime (1991-1996), the party's then secretary general Abdus Salam Talukder was made LGRD and cooperative minister, setting the trend for the next three political regimes.
Awami League had been in state power between 1996 and 2001, and the then general secretary Zillur Rahman was the LGRD minister for the whole tenure.
BNP returned to power in 2001 and the LGRD portfolio went to Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, then secretary general of the party that stayed in power until October 2006.
The following two years were tough time for political parties, including the two power-contenders Awami League and BNP, which saw their top leaders and many frontrunners in jail and went through organizational upheavals.
Awami League won a landslide victory in the December 2008 election, but its elected general secretary Abdul Jalil was sidelined and fortune finally smiled on Syed Ashraful Islam, who was the de facto general secretary of the ruling party that formed government on January 6.
More than six months after becoming the LGRD minister, Ashraf was made party's general secretary through a council session on July 24, meaning that the LGRD portfolio remained booked for the ruling party's general secretary as before.
Ruling Awami League's presidium member Abdul Latif Siddiqi said the party's general secretary always gets the responsibility of the LGRD ministry as he has more active connections with the party's roots level leaders and activities than anyone in the central committee.
'The ruling party's general secretary can play a vital role in implementing the party's election pledges through massive development activities in the grassroots. That is why general secretary remains the best choice for the LGRD ministry,' said Latif, jute and textiles minister of Sheikh Hasina's cabinet.
The size of budgetary allocations made by each government for the LGRD ministry reflects the importance of the ministry, which is among the 10 ministries that spend more than 70 per cent of the annual development outlay. The Local Government Division was allocated TK 7,934 crore in the current fiscal year's budget, which is the third highest after food and disaster and defence ministry allocations.
The BNP government for 2005-06 fiscal year allocated Tk 6,383 crore for rural development and infrastructures and the government in its last budget for the fiscal year 2006-07 allocated Tk 6795 crores for LGRD ministry.
Retired bureaucrat Asafuddowlah observed it has been the tradition that ruling party's general secretary would become the LGRD minister as it helps the general secretary maintain contacts with the grassroots leaders.
'Very often the ruling party general secretary expressed the desire to be the LGRD minister to win the support of grassroots leaders by using the ministry's strength,' he said.
Asafuddowlah, however, said the LGRD minister gets the pulse of the party's grassroots while coordinating rural development works and may use some information as weapons for dominating the party as its general secretary.
http://www.newagebd.com/2009/aug/16/front.html
