Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 16 / Trend K. Zarbaliyeva /
Azerbaijan is preparing a package of proposals on transferring the authority to collect taxes from legal entities to municipalities, Mehdi Salimzade, the chairman of the Center for Work with Municipalities under the Justice Ministry, told Trend.
Salimzade hopes that these powers will be given to the municipalities in the future. It will help to increase their financial capacity, he said.
He added that the center is constantly preparing the proposals to improve municipal legislation and submits these initiatives to the legislative body.
"We are preparing the relevant proposals to improve the administrative control as a part of the annual report and to organize fruitful activity of municipalities. The proposals include increasing the taxes paid to the municipalities, collecting various types of taxes from legal entities, as well as proposals on organizing an audit," Salimzade said.
Regarding expanding the municipalities' authority, Salimzade said there are no restrictions on executing the powers by municipalities in the legislation.
He said the municipalities have the authority to use property and real estate, to participate in resolving the socioeconomic problems.
"There are few municipalities having experience in creating new service areas. Municipalities must productively use their budget to create new service areas and get extra income at the expense of their revenues. Unfortunately, we have few municipalities using this practice in their work," Salimzade said.
He said is it possible to transfer some powers to municipalities in the area of communications and infrastructure amid the socioeconomic development of the country.
He said these powers must be transferred to municipalities stage-by-stage.
"These powers must be transferred to those municipalities that are able to cope with this work. If the municipalities are not able to cope with it, then there will be no sense to transfer such powers to them. Massive expanding the municipalities' powers will not lead to desired results," Salimzade said.
Salimzade stressed the issue of municipalities' depending on the executive bodies.
He said according to the laws, the municipalities are completely independent.
"Municipalities are fully independent while making decisions and fulfilling the issues relating to their authority. These decisions must be carried out by physical and legal entities on the territory of the municipality. The municipalities control their fulfilling. It deals with the fact that the municipalities are not dependent. Vice versa, there are individuals who must carry out the decisions of the municipalities. The law has not envisaged the municipalities' dependence on any organizations," Salimzade said.
He said there are chairmen of the municipalities, who put themselves in a dependent position.
"There are chairmen of the municipalities who put themselves in a dependent position.
The state bodies can make any order or instruction to a chairman of the municipality.
In general, these instructions relate to the socioeconomic problems and improving the welfare of people. A chairman must not take these instructions as a kind of dependence.
The head of the municipality is obliged to discuss it, to identify compliance of the received instructions with the legislation and only then execute it. In this case, no dependence will occur. However, some chairmen of the municipalities do not fulfill this procedure. They directly carry out all instructions received and thereby leaving beyond the budget, put themselves in a dependent state," Salimzade said.
He said the reason for these phenomena lies in the lack of information, wrong organizing the activity and irresponsibility of some chairmen.
Salimzade said there is a problem that some chairmen of the municipalities have no higher education. This problem negatively affects the decision-making and organizing the municipalities' activity.
Salimzade said the courses are held in the Justice Academy to educate members of the municipalities to resolve this problem.
This year, roughly 2,000 employees of the municipality attended these courses. The issues of municipal law and property management, real estate and finances of the municipality were explained.