Roundtable “Municipal system in Azerbaijan: realities and problems”

Today “ELS” Independent Research Centre has held a roundtable “Municiapl system in Azerbaijan: realities and problems”. According to APA, representatives of several municipalities, Ministry of Justice, local executive powers, and the Parliament participated in the event. Expert on municipal problems Vugar Tofigli made a report “Real condition of Azerbaijani municipalities and problems of economic development”. V.Tofigli, stating that the municipalities marked their 10th anniversary this year, emphasized that alongside with achievements within past ten years the municipalities also had certain problems. V.Tofigli said that sometimes state officials criticize the municipalities without any grounds: “Certainly, some municipalities have shortcomings in their work. 122 illegal documents have been issued within the last year. Heads of some municipalities privatized the lands without permission. But it is not right to apply it to all municipalities”. V.Tofigli said that at present there are 2757 municipalities in Azerbaijan and the number is quite big for Azerbaijan: “The number of municipalities must be the number of local executive representations”.
The head of “ELS” Independent Research centre Irada Yagubova announced the results of the monitoring held with regard to the authorities, obligations and achievements of the municipalities. According to her, 21% of the respondents assessed the work of municipalities as bad and 52% as average. That’s why the majority of the respondents – 68% said that they apply to the local executive power bodies for the solution of the problems and 5.2% to the municipalities. Nevertheless, 58% of the respondents expressed their willingness to cooperate with the municipalities for the solution of the problems.
A package of proposals has been prepared at the end of the event for the improvement of the municipalities’ work. /APA/