Decentralization/Federalism – 2007
2007
Implementation of these transfers had been mixed. The Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (English: United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts), or PCJSS, reported that out of the 33 functions to be transferred to the HDCs, portions or limited duties were transferred in 12 functions: Agriculture, Health, Primary Education, Small Industry, Cooperatives, Social Welfare, Fishery, Livestock, Public Health, Culture, Sports, and Red Cross/Crescent Unit. Clause 35 listed 12 sources of taxable revenue to be transferred to the Councils. Of these 12 revenue sources, the PCJSS claimed that none of these revenues had been transferred to the Councils.1
Clauses 1 through 14 of part C of the CHT Accord governed the functions and powers of the Regional Council. As already stated, the Regional Council was established by the Bangladeshi parliament in 1998 and Shantu Larma was appointed chairperson on 12 May 1999. Like the HDCs, however, the election of the remaining members of the Regional Council had not taken place in the previous ten years due to the lack of implementation of electoral reform and citizenship reform, as was called for in the Accord.
Clause 9 put the three HDCs under the authority of the Regional Council. It was evident that this relationship had not been legally or judicially enforced. The HDCs were run by government appointees for the last ten years and did not follow the directives of the Regional Council. Shantu Larma and the PCJSS had issued statements that were consistent with other sources in regarding the Regional Council as powerless over the three HDCs. According to Larma, the Regional Council existed in name only; the chairperson and employees had no official offices or accommodations of their own, according to their reports.2