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The Chairman of the Session Mr.
Suranjit Sengupta, opened by mentioning that, along with
other Members, he had had the opportunity of studying
the Committee systems of Australia, New Zealand, Britain
and India. He
stated that in the Indian Lok Sabha, where the
democratic process had been at work for 50 years, they
advised the Bangladesh delegation to go slow.
The Lok Sabha had only a few committees and only
senior Members were made the chairmen.
Committees tried to make as few recommendations
as possible but once the recommendation was made they
made sure that it was implemented.
Mr. Sengupta said that he was happy to see that
we had as many as 47 committees and was sure that the
chairmen are really playing their roles.
Mr.
Abul Kalam Azad thanked Mr. Sheikh Razzaque Ali and Mr.
Advocate Rahmat Ali for their illuminating and
informative papers. His first question was directed at
Mr. Razzaque Ali's statement where he had criticized the
senility, conservativeness and dictatorial behaviour
often demonstrated in the committees and suggested that
the chairperson should be elected either by the
Parliament itself or by the members of that particular
committee. He
wanted to know whether there was any instance of the
members of committees selecting their chairperson.
Mr.
Faruk Khan noted that since there was no clear directive
in the Rules of Procedures about the functions of the
chairperson, he had jotted down some of the
responsibilities that the chairperson could exercise.
These were:
a.
Arrange the meeting at least once a month
b.
Arrange all paperwork required for the meeting
c.
Ensure that these papers are distributed to the
members
d.
Conduct the meeting - introducing the agenda,
allocating time for members to discuss, writing down
decisions
e.
Call for the services of experts where required
f.
Monitor and ensure implementation
g.
Form sub-committees
h.
Interview people where needed
i.
Report back to Parliament
Mr.
Abu Hena thanked both the presenters for presenting
excellent papers. He
observed that in order for the committees to be
bipartisan and operate neutrally, at least one-third of
the chairpersons should be from the Opposition.
He questioned why there was no chairman from the
main Opposition party, BNP, as well as how the Prime
Minister's advisors, who were holding the rank of
Ministers could become chairpersons of committees.
He continued by referring to Mr. Rahmat Ali's
suggestion that the committee could be given a daily
report on the Ministry's activities and suggested that
this should be implemented.
He related an unfortunate example of
unsatisfactory chairmanship, where a particular chairman
was calling for papers and files from more than one
Ministry and then had deferred holding a meeting for one
year. He
was finally removed from the chairmanship but then
again, he refused to accept the removal. This had
resulted in the committee not being able to sit even
once for the last three years.
The
Chairman, Mr. Sengupta, admitted that this could happen
and that the Rules of Procedure gave the right for the
chairman or any Member to refuse being removed from the
committee. Mr.
Nurul Islam Nahid thanked the two presenters for their
interesting papers and said that they had rightly
pointed out that the functions of the chairmen were not
specified anywhere.
He also referred to another side of the
chairman's activities, which as people's representatives
one could not ignore. When people approached the Members
or the chairman of a committee about solution to some
problem he wanted to know what would be the proper
course for them to follow. He also pointed out that one
of the tasks of the committee was to investigate any
matters referred to it by the Parliament or enquire into
any wrongdoing in the Ministry by summoning verbal or
written evidence. The question he had was whether the
committees had powers on its own to initiate these
enquiries without having been asked to do so by
Parliament. The same question was asked by Dr. S. Akber
later.
Mr.
Md. Mizanur Rahman (Manu) thanked the ex-Speaker, Mr.
Shaikh Razzaque Ali for writing his informative paper
based on his past experiences.
The presenter of the paper had given the instance
where he had intervened in the Petitions Committee. Mr.
Mizanur Rahman said that he would like to see more such
bold steps in this Parliament from senior Members. He
agreed that most of the Members were participating in
the committees based on their sense of judgement and
their experience without really knowing much about the
procedures. He also felt that the lack of concept and
information regarding the powers and limitations of a
chairperson was hindering the transparency and the
proper functioning of these committees and this aspect
should be remedied.
He also identified the lack of offices and
logistic support as being the prime reason why the
committees were unable to play their proper role.
Drawing reference from Mr. Abu Hena's earlier comments,
he asked whether the members could call a meeting if the
chairperson continuously abstained from holding the
meeting.
Mr.
Suranjit Sengupta answered at this point that the Rules
of Procedure mandated that at least one meeting must be
held.
Mr.
Ashiqur Rahman expressed the opinion that, as there was
a lot of work in the committees, it was not practically
possible to cope with the work-load of holding one
meeting a month, especially in those committees having
linkages with two or three Ministries. He complained
that the Ministers and also the Secretaries seemed
always to be too busy to attend these meetings and asked
if there was recourse against this so that a meeting,
when held, could really be meaningful.
He also raised the issue of the TA and DA of
their staff as being inadequate.
At
this point, Mr Suranjit Sengupta mentioned that he was
unwell and, if the Members agreed, he would like to hand
over the Chairmanship of the Session to Mr. Faruk Khan
and be excused. With the approval of those present, Mr.
Faruk Khan thereby took over the Chair.
Mr.
Ahkteruzzaman continued the discussion on the theme of
the Ministers not attending meetings, supporting the
sentiments voiced by Mr. Ashiqur Rahman. He gave a
particular instance of the Defense Committee, which was
supposed to be one of the more sensitive committees
dealing with very critical national issues and with the
largest spending budget.
This committee had met nine or ten times so far
without the concerned Minister being present.
At one point, the Prime Minister had asked Mr. A.
K. Khondokar to attend and, when he refused, had
nominated Mr. Nuruddin Khan to represent the Defense
Minister. However,
the Rules of Procedure do not allow anyone to attend the
committees as a nominee. He pointed out that it was very
embarrassing when the Prime Minister requests something
that was not permitted under the Rules and the Chairman
was in a quandary as to whether he should allow or
disallow the nominee to attend. He commented that, in
third world countries where people usually kowtowed to
authority, it was difficult for the chairman to take a
stand on the basis of procedures. He wanted to know from
the chairman of the session what should be done in such
cases.
Mr.
Ahkteruzzaman continued to cite another case where a
subcommittee was formed to investigate malpractice by a
Defense purchase official and one influential member of
the committee refused to recognise the subcommittee
because he was not included in it.
He enquired what the chairman's role should be in
such cases. He particularly requested Mr. Magdy
Martinez-Soliman from UNDP to comment on this aspect.
Mr.
Afzal Khan had two questions for the two presenters but
since the first was already raised by Mr. Akhtaruzzaman,
he said he would only pose one question to Mr. Rahmat
Ali. He
said that he took exception to Mr. Rahmat Ali's
statement that, after reverting to a parliamentary form
of government in 1991, the succeeding government between
1991 and 1996 was exceedingly dependent on the civil
service and military bureaucracy. He wanted Mr. Rahmat
Ali to tell the House honestly whether the situation had
become any different now.
Dr.
S. A. Akber stated that if the transparency of the
government was to be established through these
committees, the chairmen had to have first hand
information on all that was going on in the Ministry.
That would only be possible if the chairman of
each committee could sit in all the meetings of the
concerned Ministry.
Quazi
Shamsur Rahman asked whether the experience of the
Member was taken into account when he was included in
these committees and whether the Members actually gave
the time that was required to run the committees in a
meaningful way. He
also wanted to know whether any steps were being taken
to improve the knowledge and the way the chairmen
conducted these meetings.
Mr.
Shaikh Razzaque Ali, in his response to Mr. Azad's
question, explained that the chairmen in Canada and
France were elected by the Select Committee. He noted
that in order for the committee system to be effective,
the chairman must be dynamic, alert, sensitive and above
all, must have an intimate knowledge of the Ministry. If
he has this knowledge and if he has an idea of the
lapses of the bureaucrats, there will be no want of
agenda. He gave the instance of the Committee on Land
where they were trying to find out how thousands of
acres of government land and vested properties were
illegally allocated to real estate development
companies. The
officers had no answer when they were questioned as to
how so much land was lost. If the chairman and other
members of the committees were alert and inquisitive,
the non-cooperation of the Minister would then become a
minor issue.
On
the query raised by Mr. Nurul Islam regarding the
Petitions Committee, Mr. Shaikh Razzaque Ali explained
that, although they had received many applications in
this committee, the rules stated that after the
applications are accepted they have to be forwarded to
the House and only after it is okayed by the House can
it be taken for consideration.
He mentioned that there were several applications
for the Petitions Committee to consider at this moment.
However the Speaker, on matters of public interest, in
his own right could take cognizance of any issue suo
moto, and could summon anyone for depositions to be
made under oath. He
also made the observation that democracy can only
function if the members co-operate.
If the Minister refuses to attend the meetings
this is unfortunate and the democratic process is being
impeded.
Mr.
Shaikh Razzaque Ali also dealt with the allegation about
the Prime Minister asking a representative to attend a
meeting of the Defense Committee.
He said that the Parliament was the place to
solve national issues and not to juggle with rules and
procedures. He asserted that if the Prime Minister
cannot attend, then despite the rules, representatives
can be sent. He also narrated, from his experience of
chairing over several committees in the past, that
despite the differences on the House Floor, the
committee was the ideal forum where both the parties
could arrive at decisions by consensus. However, he
mentioned that we were used to saying something and
doing exactly the opposite, so it is a matter of good
intentions, more than anything else.
If we could get away from this practice, then
gradually but perceptively we could make the committees
perform the role it was supposed to perform.
Our national vision should not be to go backward
but to go forward.
Mr.
Rahmat Ali took the floor to answer several questions.
He clarified that, due to paucity of time, he
could not go into the details but only touch on the
subjects generally. He explained that although the
discussion today was about the responsibilities of the
chairpersons of the committees, nevertheless the
function of the committee itself needed to be clarified.
The committees, he explained, could only perform
a legislative role and advise the respective Ministry to
bring about a transparency and accountability to the
Ministries. It
had no authority to perform an executive role.
Drawing
reference to a Member's objection to the reference he
made on the civil and military bureaucracy, Mr. Rahmat
Ali clarified that what he had meant was that in the
1991-96 period, some of the committee chairmen
themselves were civil/military bureaucrats. Therefore,
the present status was definitely better. He was
however, emphatic that the role of civil and military
bureaucracy must be curbed if democracy was to flourish.
Mr.
Afzal Khan, MP requested the chairman to give him the
floor for a minute and asked Mr. Rahmat Ali whether the
role of the civil and military bureaucracy during the
present government had diminished or increased. He also
went on to say that too much time was wasted during
these two days by limiting our discussions to committee
systems. Some
of this time should have been devoted to discussion
about ways and means of improving the
Parliament itself.
He referred to certain remarks made known to the
press by various means where the Ministers alleged that
it was actually the Secretaries who were running the
Government and not the Ministers.
He emphasized that if the rules of business were
not changed, it was virtually impossible to have a
sovereign Parliament answerable to the people and an
executive answerable to the Parliament.
He also restated the question raised by various
Members regarding the action taken if the Ministers and
the Secretaries did not attend the meetings. He
concluded by saying that, in effect, the committees were
toothless and ineffective and unless basic changes were
made the committees would remain so.
He admitted that it cannot be done in one day but
felt that this meeting has not taken any decisions to
make perceptible and tangible changes.
The
Chairman thanked Mr. Sheikh Razzaque Ali and Mr. Rahmat
Ali for their papers and the participants for their
discourse on the issue and finally adjourned the
meeting.
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