Amendment to Municipality Board Law stressed

Staff Reporter: Municipalities mayors have demanded to amend Municipality Board Law 2004 for strengthening its judiciary practice.They said local people have a great opportunity to avoid spending lots of money and untold harassment through municipality court to resolve their disputes.
The Mayors, however, said that the existing law on this regard has to be reformed to rend peoples’ service on resolving their disputes.
The mayors demand it through a webinar on Tuesday.
They said while village court of Union Parishad can charge Tk 72,000 in its cases, the municipality court’s ceiling fixed at Tk 25,000 only, which is not acceptable.
Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Nagorik Uddog and Citizen Platform for SDG Implementation, Bangladesh, organized the programme combined.
Dewan Kamal Ahmed, President of Municipal Association Bangladesh (MAB) and Mayor of Nilphamari Municipality was Chief Guest in the progamme.
He said, without reforming the existing law, the poor people of the municipalities areas will be sufferer as the judiciary procedure of courts are lengthy and costly to them.
Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik (Sujan) Secretary Badiul Alam Majumder said, in order to strengthen the local government institutions, the weaknesses of the structure of municipalities need to be addressed. Environments have to be ensured for effective use of the law.
Khalid Hossain Yad, Secretary General of MAB and Mayor of Madaripur Municipality, the remaining law should be amended to strengthen the municipality.
Professor Abul Khair, Mayor of Laksham Municipality, said the municipalities have a much larger population than the village. Peoples’ income is also high. Then why the compensation of dispute resolution in municipality is less than that of village court?
Advocate Aynun Nahar Siddiqui, a lawyer of the Supreme Court and Yrsmin Sultana, Panel Mayor of Narsingdi Municipality took part in the discussion.
Zakir Hossain, Executive of Nagorik Uddog moderated it. Md. Shahid, Chief Coordinator of MLAA presented a documentary on the limitations and recommendations of the Municipal Dispute Resolution (Municipal Area) Board Act, 2004.