Azleen: Elect councilors who will work together with government

Minister of Home Affairs, Azleen Ahmed has appealed to the public to elect representatives who are honest, capable, and will cooperate with the government during the upcoming Local Council Election.

Minister Azleen, who is also the President of Local Government Authority (LGA) made the appeal this Sunday, in his address to the country on occasion of Day of Decentralization.

In his address, Azleen said adopting the principles of decentralization in governance was a legal revolution, and an important path made towards having the wishes of the people heard in day-to-day decision making of the government.

“It’s a legal opportunity to plan city, atoll and island-level services with the counsel of the people. I therefore appeal to all beloved councilors to make use of the opportunity with responsibility and answerability,” said Azleen.

Azleen said local councils were an important extension of the government which serves the people on behalf of the State, which meant the biggest responsibility of the councils was to provide the services equally.

“This path can only be shaped with increase in inclusion of the people. By sharing information regarding how decisions and work of the councils are executed with the people and hearing their opinion. Then only can a council be responsible and answerable,” he said.

Azleen said decentralized governments across the world had overcome years of challenges to perfect the system; and that Maldives faced a number of major hurdles in executing a decentralized approach to governance.

“Many of the arrangements which needed to be made beforehand had to be done after decentralization was adopted. Governors are warning that this means the loss of necessary smoothness and perfection in execution of this approach. So our biggest priority has been to smoothen and perfect decentralization approach to governance. We have done a number of some important work to this end over the past couple of years.”