«The Government should get to a new level of interaction with local self-government bodies,» the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Ulukbek Maripov said.
He reminded that along with the elections, a referendum on the draft new edition of the Constitution would be held on April 11. If approved, many changes will have to be made to the current regulatory legal acts.
«One of them may be the code on local self-government, which is being developed by you. It should contain a full range of tasks on which local self-government bodies will have to work,» Ulukbek Maripov said, addressing officials.
Director of the Union of Local Self-Government Bekturgan Orozbaev reported on the main directions of the organization’s work. He also stressed that the Union considers it necessary to ensure further development of local self-government bodies, to strengthen their accountability to the local community and people’s participation in the decision-making process. In addition, it is necessary to take measures to increase the revenue potential of local budgets, increase the share of local revenues in the total revenues of the state budget.
Bekturgan Orozbaev also proposed to provide local government bodies with development budgets that would allow them to engage in development of territories and provide high-quality services to the population, reform the system of equalizing provision of local budgets and ensure its fairness and transparency. He also considers it important to make a clear delineation of the functions and powers of state bodies and LSG bodies and establish a fair system of distribution of income between the republican and local budgets and their expenditure obligations depending on the functions and powers assigned to the respective levels of government.
The head of Government stressed the need to consider the proposed changes in the work of local government bodies. He also noted that local governments need professional qualified personnel. It is necessary to attract young specialists, to improve the professional level of the current municipal employees.
«It is obvious that the system of training of municipal employees, mayors of cities, heads of rural administrations and deputies of local councils needs improvement. Their level of literacy determines how quickly and qualitatively life will change in all 452 rural administrations and 32 cities of the country. In turn, the Government will provide the necessary support for the implementation of these plans,» Ulukbek Maripov summed up.
