Municipalities should be given real powers

Municipalities of the country are not able to develop independently due to the absence of real self-governing status. This opinion was expressed by MPs in parliament today, and by Vilayat Zahirov, Deputy Minister of Justice, referring to the annual report on the administrative control of municipalities.

According to him, 1,718 local governments function in the country. Last year, the judiciary branch received 52,370 reports of actions conducted by municipalities, 1532 of which were deemed illegal.

Serious violations of the law were revealed in the activities of 28 municipalities, and there are grounds to pass these cases to the Prosecutor General Office. 

Last year, the Ministry of Justice revealed evidence of the illegal issuance of 8,970.47 hectares of land and secured the lands’ return to municipalities. This year the Prosecutor Office received eight applications on corruption. In total last year, the Ministry of Justice received 1,587 complaints of municipalities.

During the discussions, the deputies discussed many issues that bypassed the deputy minister.  Thus, the land sold with the permission of the executive power are not always owned by municipalities. During the conflict of interest when people are evicted from their homes and land, it was revealed that the lands are the territory of the state, ministries of transport, border guards and other structures.

Many municipalities do not even have an administrative map; they do not have a clear understanding of the limits of their territory.

For the needs of municipalities, five million manat were allocated from the state budget, while the Baku Mayor Office gets 200 million manat.

Almost all municipalities (with few exceptions) are in debt. They have no program of action or human resources to provide even salaries.

Municipal leaders do not know that approximately 20 laws have been adopted, regulating their activity, so they often try to make money through illegal land sales. According to deputies, the executive branches are the actual owners in the regions. We must seriously consider the problem of transferring  responsibilities to municipalities, MPs believe.  -17D-