Position paper: The Local Administration Law. The Independence of the Elected Councils is an Achievement of Goals and a Governance of Democracy

The research study conducted by the Karak Center for Consultation and Training, within specialized interviews, focus groups, and reviews with legislators, experts and people with experience in the decentralization and municipal councils in the governorates, concluded that the laws of municipalities and decentralization and the regulations issued according to them, require a radical alternative to the legislative text in force. This new alternative shall have the law of “local administration” incorporated between the two laws, preserve the independence and authority of the elected councils, clarify and coordinate among the competencies of each of the councils (local, municipal, governorate, and executive), provide a real representative framework that guarantees fair opportunities for participation of different groups of society and their desire in service decision-making, and achieve a governance, follow-up, and accountability mechanism for the entities in charge of implementing projects and plans, which in their basic inception go back to the local communities distributed over the administrative divisions in the Kingdom.

The proposed policy comes to allocate a comprehensive official umbrella represented by the “Ministry of Local Administration” for service work in municipalities and villages, to bridge a large legal and administrative gap that appeared during the first session of the provincial councils, since 2016, between their approval of projects and the allocation of budgets on the one hand and their implementation on the ground on the one hand. The conflict for the jurisdiction of implementation between the various government institutions whose regulating legislation constitutes an obstacle to the decentralized administrative reform “movement” that repeated royal wills have instructed, during the past years, on the need to move forward with in order to achieve sustainable development outside the “centralization of decision” in the capital as well as preserving the right of the governorates to determine their needs and harmonize their plans.