Abstract
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This policy paper is built on the previous paper presented at the NISPACee annual conference in Bratislava, namely the issue of “Local Self Government in Kyrgyzstan – myth or reality?”.
Policy papers and workshops with regard to Local self Government in the Kyrgyz Republic demonstrated that in local governments today there are very specific confusions, myths, and fears that are to do with the following:
• relationships with “higher-level authorities” (i.e., local state administrations, departments of national ministries),
• the role of local councilors is often confused with the role of members of parliament, and councilors do not realize the growing powers and authority that they are receiving from the new legislation and governmental reforms (decentralization programme),
• local kenesh councilors do not feel that they should be working as one team with the executive organs of local government,
• poor knowledge of local government law, rights and authorities entrusted,
• confusion over issues of democratic governance and leadership,
• poor understanding of organizational and management practices,
• prevalence of tolerant attitudes towards bullying by local state administrations and governmental vertical structures (i.e., departments of ministries, national agencies, and committees),
• belief that the National Government knows everything about local government to minute detail of how to resolve problems and issues at local level.
The above-mentioned confusions, myths and fears are true for both urban (cities) and rural (village) regions for the following reasons:
The heads of local governments (i.e., mayor, heads of ayil okmotu) are perceived as the main hubs of information and the decision making knots in their municipalities, which puts them in difficult positions of the only authority to make decisions, the only person that knows, the only person to blame for failures of local government, and the only person having to stand off in the face of “higher-level authorities”.
The “responsible workers” (staff members with remit and pay) do not have much autonomy and always have to turn to someone for approval. Younger specialists of the apparat (executive body) are often told off for demanding change or bringing new initiatives, “Quiet, this is not an NGO”. Young specialists have complained that they are often asked by senior colleagues to run around errands for them. This work, which is outside of the remit (not included in the Functional Responsibilities Schedule / Terms of References) of these specialists undermines their confidence, distracts them from their primary responsibilities, and results in conflicts. There are some specialists, both young and old, who believe that “running around and getting things done is a good way to learn about the job”. However, the issue here is whether the person runs around getting work done on his or her will working towards some common objective, or getting work done out of loyalty of fear of the senior colleagues.
Due to shortage of staff, very often specialists are appointed to fulfill one job but have to multi-task and require a lot of extra hours and no remuneration for this extra work. Besides overburden the specialists of local governments find themselves in the position of critical hubs of information and know-how, which their colleagues may not have, and thus, if these particular “hub” people are not at work (for reasons of illness or business travel) their jobs are not picked up or delegated to others, blockage of tasks mounts up.
Some specialists have complained about their colleagues not treating each other with due respect, especially when young or new staff members arrive. There is constant checking of one’s abilities and looking for “scapegoats” when things go wrong.
Promotion and appointments are not transparent, and staff feel that the abilities are not matching the jobs, both from the perspective specialists having outgrown their posts and from the perspective of wrong people taking up jobs that they cannot fulfill.
One of the mechanisms suggested to overcome the problems of decentralization was (1) to study, address problems of releasing power (i.e., by local state administrations) as well as acquiring and using new power (i.e., by local councilors) during decentralization process; (2) Better understanding of what is a municipality, a municipal team, cooperation in representative and executive branches of local government, and issues of teamwork and teambuilding to be gained at local governments; (3) how all those factor will affect the service delivery capacity of local self government urban versus rural; (4) development of well-designed policies to rectify the problem of absorbing resources to the detriment of other areas. The above-mentioned problems of decentralization should be looked and justified from the point of service delivery capacity of cities and villages to citizens.
The starting point for the policy analysis is the fact that as it was stated in the research , the big cities can provide more services to citizens rather than small towns and villages, as big capital cities tend to over-centralize economic, social and political life. The question is whether decentralization policy has been built on the exercises that good for Local Government strong body building, namely: citizens’ initiatives, publicity, active and accountable councilors, coherent functions, enough financial and human resources. If it is the case, will the size of the municipality (big city or a small village) affect life of citizens considerably?
This particular research is being conducted under the frame of the Project “Arrangements to Combat Corruption” funded by OSI/LGI, the overall objective of which is “To provide support for a research aiming to draw specific attention and tackle those aspects of service delivery that are not typically of high visibility but nevertheless hamper efficient, effective and equitable service delivery”. The outcomes of the research will be submitted to LGI in January 2009, and presented to the Working Group 1 at the NISPACee annual conference in Budva May 2009.
Specific Objective to be achieved:
Research and discuss:
- Pros and cons of the problem with regard to service delivery on the local level, urban versus rural as the outcome of the decentralization strategy implementation in the country
- The way accountability mechanisms actually work in practice to improve provision of communal services to citizens
- Interaction between the citizens and the local government and /or state bodies
- Accountability arrangements to combat corruption on the local level with regard to allocation of lands and social infrastructure.
Research Methodology:
- Collecting & analyzing available information & statistical data.
- Series of meetings with key stakeholders to introduce the objective of the project, get them involved into the research, discuss the survey timeframe, get agreement for conducting interviews, present preliminary findings, and discuss the outcome.
- Conduct SWAT analysis
- Development of a questionnaire, discussing it with key players, distribution and collecting back.
- Conducting non-standardized interviews with government officials from two selected ministries (State Registration Agency and the State Agency of Architecture& Construction) and data processing.
- Conducting non-standardized interviews with front-line staff of selected local governments in Bishkek capital city and Cholpon-Ata city in resort area, and data processing.
- Conducting non-standardized interviews with respective NGOs, and data processing.
- Focus Group Discussion with end-users (citizens, private sector) in two selected cities.
- Round table discussion with participation of key stakeholders, NGOs, citizens and private sector to discuss main outcomes and recommendations of the research.
- Writing the first draft paper and presenting it to the target groups.
- Writing the final paper and presenting to LGI and NISPACee WG 1.
Elections to Local Councils took place very recently, October 5th . The SWOT analysis, to our opinion, will help new councilors and municipal staff to build their every day life and relations with each other taking into account Results of SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis of each municipalities have brought to light an interesting picture of how within a municipality the apparat (executive body) and the kenesh (representative body) perceive themselves, and how they perceive the work of each other.
Table1 – Cholpon Ata town: Perceptions of Apparat and Kenesh (“We and Them”):
“We – The Apparat of Mayor’s Office” “They – the Town Kenesh”
Strengths – “What is good”:
- We have relative independence
- We have a regional Professional Municipal Centre
- We have experienced management staff
- We conduct cooperative work with the chairman of our council
- We have a department of municipal property management
- We developed a register of municipal property
- Department for municipal property management collaborates with the mayor’s office.
Difficulties – “What is bad”:
- Actual dependence on all levels of authorities
- Insecurity of employees’s jobs
- Work overload
- Low salaries
- Personnel turnover
- Weak material and technical basis
- Shortage of staff
- Self-financing
- Absence of a privatising programme
Fears – “What are the foreseeable threats”:
- Budget being formed from the top
- Prevalence of tribalism
- Staff downsizing
- Lack of support to the Department of Municipal Property management from the mayor’s office
Opportunities – “What has to be done”:
- To motivate staff
- To organise continuous training of professionals
- To organize personnel rotation Strengths – “What is good”:
- There is the Status of Town Kenesh
- The Chairman of Town Kenesh
- Provision of a normal legal basis (laws availability)
- The opening of the Regional Professional Municipal Centre
- The work of the local councillors in the rayon level keneshes (i.e., on voting for the rayon Akim and the mayor of town)
- Knowledge of the budget law
- An overall highly professional pool of councillors
- Decision-making in favour of the local budget
Difficulties – “What is bad”:
- Weak links with the community
- Lack of interest
- Weak knowledge of the laws on Local Government by the local councilors
- Weak working of the permanent commissions
- Gender imbalance in the kenesh
- Failure to fulfill the promises made to the electorate
- Weak working of the apparat of the town kenesh
- Weak control over the implementation of decisions
- Not enough authority for one or the other
- Absence of a expenditure specialists in the permanent commission for finance and budget of the Town Kenesh
Fears – “What are the foreseeable threats”:
- Pressures of the “upper-level state administration authorities”
- Failure to deliver on the promises made to electorate and community
- Failure in implementation of the decisions made by kenesh
- Contradictions (conflicts) with the mayor’s office and its departments
Opportunities – “What has to be done”:
- To raise the responsibility awareness and competences for the social and economic development of the town
- To bring in investors and investments
- To create jobs and raise employment
- To train local councilors
- To adopt decisions on raising the revenue side of local budget
- Cooperative work with the Mayor’s office and its departments
- Fighting for the decisions implementation
“We – The Town Kenesh” “They – the Apparat of Mayor’s office”
Strengths – “What is good”:
• We have good understanding between kenesh and the mayor’s office
• We have mostly young councilors
• We have strong professional councilors
• We are a team and we cooperate
• We have good understanding of the social situation of our community
• We look for sponsors
• We are competent
• We are decisive
• We are communicable
Difficulties – “What is bad”:
• We do not have any interest in the affairs of local significance (i.e., local functions)
• Insufficient knowledge
• Insufficient information circulation
• Gender imbalance
• Insufficient use of councilors’ rights and authorities
• Weak links with the electorate
• Lack of knowledge / understanding about functional responsibilities of the mayor’s office staff / departments
• There is no cooperation between the permanent commission of the Town Kenesh on social issues and the social workers / staff of the mayor’s office
• Weak interest from the members of the permanent commission of the Town Kenesh towards work in the commission
• Absence of a proper analysis on socially vulnerable community groups
• Operationally weak
Fears – “What are the foreseeable threats”:
• Liquidation of the kenesh
• Lack of unity among councilors
• Indifference towards electorate
• Cold relations and possible fall-out with the mayor’s office
• Pressures from the “upper-level authority” (i.e., oblast)
• Lobbying by individual councilors
Opportunities – “What has to be done”:
• To improve the links with the electorate
• To unite and lobby the issues of local significance
• To decide regarding the issues of financial independence of the local government
• To bring in investments
• To improve links of the permanent commissions and the staff of mayor’s office
• To improve the cooperation with the social workers/ staff of social department of mayor’s office
• To raise the motivation (the interest) of permanent commission members through a proper analysis of social issues
Strengths – “What is good”:
• Opening of the Regional Professional Municipal Centre under mayor’s office
• Competitive hiring of personnel
• Universality of specialists
• Growing numbers of young staff members
• Close contact with the local community
• Search for sponsors for helping socially vulnerable community groups
• Inexhaustible initiative of the employees
Difficulties – “What is bad”:
• They are unprotected / insecure
• There is not enough staff numbers
• Overload of work on specialists
• Pressures from “upper-level authorities”
• Financial dependence
• Failure to implement laws
• Insufficient training of cadre
• Weak working of the municipal enterprises
• Gender imbalance
Fears – “What are the foreseeable threats”:
• Moratorium on financial independence
• High turnover of staff
Opportunities – “What has to be done”:
• To train municipal staff through the Regional Professional Municipal Centre
• To secure access to information
• To improve local government’s technical equipment provision
• To link and cooperate with other municipalities
• To improve the operational work
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