All city mayors removed

The interim government yesterday removed all mayors of 12 city corporations and 1,873 public representatives at the four other tiers of local government.
It also got rid of the mayors and administrators of all 330 municipalities; 61 zilla parishad chairmen; 493 out of 495 upazila parishad chairmen, 988 vice-chairmen, and women vice-chairmen of the upazila parishads, stated gazette notifications issued by the LGRD ministry yesterday.
The government also appointed administrators to carry out the responsibilities of the mayors of the city corporations and the municipalities.
Md Sher Ali, additional secretary of Local Government Division (LGD), was appointed administrator of Dhaka South City Corporation while Md Mahmudul Hasan, director general (additional secretary) LGD, of Dhaka North City Corporation.
Divisional commissioners of Chattogram, Khulna, Rajshahi, Sylhet, Barishal, Rangpur, and Mymensingh were given the charges of their respective city corporations. The divisional commissioner of Dhaka will administer Gazipur City Corporation.
AHM Kamruzzaman, additional secretary of LGD, was appointed Narayanganj City Corporation, and Saif Uddin Ahmed, director general of Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD), Comilla City Corporation administrators.
Divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners (DCs) and upazila nirbahi officers (UNOs) will also be administrators of their respective zilla and upazila parishads, the notifications said. They did not mention who will perform the duties of upazila parishad vice chairmen and women vice chairmen.
On August 14, the LGD in an order said many mayors and panel mayors have been absent due to existing circumstances. The LGD tried to communicate with them but failed.
The order said their absence halted services and other work of city corporations and that was why a decision was made to give chief executive officers the full administrative and financial authority to run the city corporations in public interest.
Five days after the order, the government yesterday issued a notification, removing all public representatives and appointing administrators.
According to sources, several mayors, including the ones of the DSCC, the DNCC, Chattogram, Khulna, Barishal, Mymensingh, and Cumilla city corporations, have been absent at work since the fall of the Awami League government on August 5.
All the absentee mayors had AL backing.
DNCC mayor Atiqul Islam went to his office on Sunday night but left soon afterwards as a group of people tried to chase him, sources said.
Talking to the reporters at his office yesterday, LGRD Adviser AF Hassan Ariff said, “The move is an attempt to clean up the entire local government.” 
Basically, the administrator will perform the duties instead of the mayor and chairman, he said, adding that no decision was made regarding the councillors.
Dr Tofail Ahmed, a local government expert, welcomed the move saying the public representatives failed to prove themselves.
“As the elections were grossly faulty and since almost all public representatives, including the prime minister, ministers, lawmakers, under whom they were elected, are now on the run, these appointments have justification,” he told The Daily Star.
Of the 12 mayors, nine are on the run. The rest are in the country but absent at work. The councillors are also absent for which the city corporations are dysfunctional, he added.
Their absence hampers day-to-day services and there is no good alternative to appointing administrators, Tofail said.
“These administrators are acceptable as interim management, but I hope the council will do only day-to-day work and continue ongoing projects and not take up any new projects,” he said.
On zilla parishad, Tofail said this local government body was dysfunctional as people did not take part in the election. The representatives were not elected directly and zilla parishad was like “rehabilitation centres for Awami League leaders”.
He said upazila parishad too became dysfunctional to some extent as local lawmakers were made adviser to the parishad. There has always been a feud between chairmen, MPs, UNOs, vice chairmen, and members.
ZILLA, UPAZILA, UNION
The government appointed officials, including additional deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners (land), as administrators for the 330 municipalities.
With gazette notifications issued by the LGRD ministry, 323 municipality mayors and seven municipality administrators were removed. All municipalities now have new administrators at their helms.
The DCs will now serve as administrators of 53 zilla parishads.
Divisional commissioners will act as administrators of Dhaka, Chattogram, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Mymensingh, Rangpur and Barishal zilla parishads.
No change was made to the three zilla parishads in Chittagong Hill Tracts.
The UNOs will be administrators of 495 upazila parishads until further notice following the removal of the chairmen of 493 upazila parishads.
Khulna’s Koyra upazila parishad chairman passed away and polls to Madaripur’s Dasar upazila parishad have not been held since it became an upazila.
In a notification issued last night, the LGD asked divisional commissioners and DCs to give panel chairmen the authority of union parishad if the chairmen were absent.
In case there are no panel chairmen, the divisional commissioners and DCs can give the UNO and AC land concerned financial and administrative authority of the union parishad.