Gov­ern­ment needs to con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­trench lo­cal gov­ern­ment in or­der to give it more pow­er and au­ton­o­my says po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath.

As it stands, Ra­goonath says, Cab­i­net can, at the stroke of a pen, do away with lo­cal Gov­ern­ment al­to­geth­er.

Ra­goonath was among a pan­el of speak­ers dis­cussing lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form at the Na­tion­al Li­brary on Aber­crom­by Street yes­ter­day.

The dis­cus­sion was part of the Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form Fo­rum (CRF) Re­pub­lic Day fo­rum, en­ti­tled Bring­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Clos­er to the Peo­ple.

Ra­goonath, who was part of a two mem­ber pan­el with for­mer coun­cil­lor in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion Daren Mc Leod, said cor­po­ra­tions had the con­trol over pol­i­cy and could not make de­ci­sions on their own.

"We treat­ed lo­cal gov­ern­ment in the past, sim­ply as an ad­min­is­tra­tive arm of the gov­ern­ment. We need to move fur­ther away and give lo­cal gov­ern­ment a lot more au­ton­o­my and a lot more strength to do what they need to do."

Ra­goonath said lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form didn't nec­es­sar­i­ly need con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form but it would be bet­ter if it was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly en­trenched.

"In that way, that cen­tral gov­ern­ment does­nt have the pow­er to sim­ply do away with lo­cal gov­ern­ment."

"I am al­most cer­tain if the gov­ern­ment goes to the op­po­si­tion and say we want to amend the con­sti­tu­tion to en­trench the lo­cal gov­ern­ment, they will get the sup­port."

Ra­goonath has been part of dis­cus­sions on lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form since the top­ic first gained trac­tion in the ear­ly 2000s and said the is­sue had not moved much fur­ther than dis­cus­sions and pa­pers on the is­sue.

Mc Leod, who spent three years as a coun­cil­lor, said the cur­rent lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem was prob­lem­at­ic in that there was re­dun­dan­cy re­gard­ing the role of the MP and the role of coun­cil­lors.

He said the role of coun­cil­lors were not clear­ly de­fined and so coun­cil­lors found them­selves do­ing work, which the MP would then take up.

Mc Leod said fund­ing con­straints as well as hu­man re­source is­sues al­so con­tributed to a sys­tem that was­nt work­ing. –Kali­fa Clyne