Number of councilors in local islands still insufficient: LGA

The number of local island councillors is still less, but it would not be recommended to continue with the current salary structure if the number of councillors are increased, Local Governance Authority (LGA) said today.

Speaking at the Decentralisation Committee following a question by MP of Bilehdhoo constituency on plans to reduce the number of councillors, LGA's Director General Adam Shareef said that local governance means participator governance of an island or atoll.

As such, electing 1-2 people to an island would not constitute as participatory governance, he went on to explain.

LGA highlighted that local governance is expensive and involves a high level of public participation, but the belief that councils increase in size because of high expenses is due to implementing it based on a wrong model.

"For me, five people are also actually less. To run a technically involved local governance in the islands. Running an inclusive local governance is about people working together, consulting and deciding, then having the council implement it," Adam Shareef said.

He further said that increasing public participation would improve local governance and that lowering the number of members would narrow public participation. However, discussion must be broadened, he stressed.

"I believe that five members are also less for the islands. That also must be increased. But we can come up with formulas to increase [the number of members] without giving salaries. The problem is the mindset that everyone must work at the council full time," Adam Shareef further said.

"I don't believe five members are too many. For small islands, it's okay. But I believe participation should be increased. The salary model can be changed, that's what we should talk about."

Adam Shareef went on to say that having three council members is too less, and likened it to making decisions at a household level.

When asked about Women's Development Committees (WDC), Adam Shareef said that when the first WDC election was held in 2011 and the response was poor, a lot of politicians believed that the poor response was because LGA held the elections.

But he pointed out that the situation is still the same, despite Elections Commission organising the elections.

"... You can see it's not an issue of the election, yes? What we learned back then that is two elected bodies would not function to run a single island. If there are two elected bodies in an island, both bodies would have conflict between them. There will be issues between both sides over the island's properties, ownership and facilities," he added.

Adam Shareef said that LGA's proposed solution is to keep the WDC as a committee within the council, and to allocate a quota for women in the council itself. However, the parliament's decision was not in favour of LGA's recommendations.

His explanation also detailed that the authority proposed for each island to ideally have one elected councillor or mayor, while the rest would be councillors elected from each constituency who would only participate in meetings.

Currently there are five councillors for each island regardless of the population size. Critics say it is too many councillors considering the workload in such islands.