The government at the deputy commissioners' annual conference on Wednesday hinted at an increase in taxes of city corporations and municipalities to improve their services.
'We have laid stress on tax increase to increase revenue collection and improve service delivery by local government bodies such as city corporations and municipalities,' the LGRD and cooperatives minister, Syed Ashraful Islam, told reporters after a working session at the secretariat.
He said that the deputy commissioners had sought more allocations for local government bodies that include upazila and union councils.
The deputy commissioners sought legal authority to monitor the implementation of development programmes directly related to public welfare.
The minister said that it would be impossible to improve service delivery by local government bodies without an increase in revenue. The city corporation taxes were last revised in 1998 as most local representatives are against any moves to increase taxes, he added.
'We have asked them to take measures to increase revenue collections to strengthen local government bodies. It is not possible to improve and expand services without increasing the revenue of local government bodies,' Ashraful said. The deputy commissioners in another session of the three-day conference that began on Tuesday asked the commerce ministry to provide them with lists of dealers and distributors of essential commodities so that they could strengthen market surveillance, a number of deputy commissioners told New Age.
They said that in most of the cases, dealers were politically influential and local administrations find it tough to control them.
In the absence of the minister, the commerce secretary, Ghulam Hossain, assured the district administrators that the ministry would provide them with the lists in a week.
The matter came to be discussed amid soaring prices and shortage of sugar and cooking oil which are still selling for prices higher than what the government set in view of Ramadan.
Inaugurating the conference at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday, the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, asked all the deputy commissioners and seven divisional commissioners to guard against attempts at price manipulation in Ramadan, beginning in the first week of August.
She asked the deputy commissioners to be more active in Ramadan so that unscrupulous traders could not increase prices through manipulations.
Nine working sessions dealing with the ministries of communications, social welfare, commerce, agriculture, fisheries, local government, labour, expatriates' welfare, health, food and public administration and the Prime Ministers' Office were held on the second day of the conference to be concluded today.
The Dhaka deputy commissioner recommended legal authority for them so that they could monitor the government's development programmes.
The Gazipur deputy commissioner asked for strengthening tax collection while the Lakhshmipur deputy commissioner proposed to double the rate for the lease of government land to increase revenue.
A number of deputy commissioners complained against deputations of an increased number of personnel from the Armed Forces to civil administration.
Deputy commissioners of Kishoreganj, Gopalganj and Rangpur asked the public administration ministry to increase the ceiling of their fuel from 200 litres to 300 litres.
The Gopalganj deputy commissioner asked the PMO for more coordination in local administrations to monitor the activities of non-governmental organisations.
Source : New Age
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