15591 people elected as a member of municipality began to choice of the chairman of 1709 municipalities. The most strained days of the process fell to snowy days of January by chance. Thus, chairman choice must end till the end of January in the central municipalities. It should be noted that according to the information given us, 70 percent of the process ended in the village and settlement municipalities. However, the process is delayed in a number of central cities and regions because of certain problems are not still solved. Researches made in this directions show that weather condition in a number of regions, executive heads’ being on leave in some regions are the main causes in delaying the process. It is interesting that though the certificates were not given to the members by State Election Committee, there was a municipality held a meeting. So, it is necessary to hold a meeting again by pressure of the corresponding structures because of the previous one was illegal.
We briefly mentioned to the point concerning chairman choice. However, besides chairman choice, the members of municipalities worry about other problems.
At present, the main attention directed to the discussion in the Regional Problems Committee of amendments intended to be made to the municipality legislation in Milli Majlis (National Assembly). Thus, the projects about making amendments to the law on “Status of municipalities” and also municipalities’ reporting to Milli Majlis are already on discussion. Among suggestions, amendments on “Status of Municipalities” be made to the Article 19 of the law of AR was included. Thus, the responsibility on chairmen of municipalities was grown a little bit, i.e. the chairmen that not having discussed the budget and approved itself on time will have to leave their position. Besides, in other cause of this article after approving the budget the duty of explaining it to the public was put in front of chairmen. Not depending on the form of the process, the mentioned opportunity draws attention from transparence providing point of view. The task on the second discussion is the law on “Municipality reports”. It should be noted that Milli Majlis accepted the law on approving the regulations on “state registration of municipalities and giving them certificates”. It is noted in the Article9. 1:” the information reflected in the electron version of state registration is placed in the official internet site of Milli Majlis”. In the Article 10, collection of information about “Azerbaijan Republic municipalities” reflected the list of municipalities once through 5 years by Milli Majlis of AR is published. Then a question can appear in that situation: “Does Milli Majlis take up the responsibility or not?” It seems information source of all municipalities should be collected in Milli Majlis and the certificates must be given exactly by this body. As a result, there is possibility to form a department in order to carry out these processes. We can come into conclusion by looking through the law project on “the Reports of Municipalities”; MM will pay attention to all opportunities concerning the activity of local bodies.
The reason of mentioning these tasks is to increase the urgency of reporting task of municipalities and to try to simplify the process. It should be noted that, municipalities must report firstly to electors and the activity must be open to all citizens. It is right that this requirement of the law is not executed by 80 percent of municipalities. Probably, this requirement will be executed by the new municipalities. And then which bodies pay attention to the activity of municipalities?
Our observations in this direction show that, municipalities make reports to the work centre of the Justice Ministry over the public control, for the tasks related to lands (especially in auction opportunities) to State Committee on Property Tasks, for the finance tasks to the Finance Ministry, for the tax tasks to the Taxes Ministry, for the common activity to Milli Majlis and also constantly make reports to the local executive bodies and some of the organization requires indirectly the reports, so all of these processes lay obstacles to the real activity of these bodies seriously. According to the approximate calculations, a municipality must send 60 reports in succession five times a month to various state and executive bodies. It means a municipality must make report for a week and deliver it to the demanded bodies instead of doing concrete work. Taking into account the salary of municipality employees and decreasing the number of employees according to the staff schedule, then there is probability of remaining undone of this demand too. We can suppose that there can be problems in delivering of reports.
We can come into conclusion that the system of the report of municipalities should be carried out in concentrated form and this process should be in the charge of the Justice Ministry. Firstly, the corresponding body of this ministry is in operation for a long time and has a certain experience in this area. Besides, it has a close cooperation with municipalities. The state registration service of municipalities can be included in the authorities of the bodies operated in the composition of this ministry. Regional department of the ministry is in operation as well. By means of this process, the control over common activity is centralized, the report form is made by existing order and a municipality sends maximum two reports to the centre instead of 60 ones. Any problem may not occur in getting of this information then.
As a result, one of the problems of the Azerbaijan municipality system may be solved and Milli Majlis as a legislative body may be engaged in solving of problems related to municipality legislation instead of collecting any information or taking up the responsibility and it can be useful for common work. Then municipalities really will step in the next development period on the democracy way.
Vuqar Tofiqli
