Amending the law on municipalities is the basis for increasing the powers of urban management

Yazd- The senior advisor of the Assembly of Mayors of Iranian Metropolises announced the proposal to add about 20 new duties to Article 55 of the Law on Municipalities and said: These amendments are aimed at removing overlapping duties and strengthening powers.

According to Mehr reporter, Seyyed Ali Miranjati, on Friday afternoon, in the 128th meeting of the Assembly of Mayors of Iranian Metropolises, referring to the structural challenges of urban management, stated: One of the important issues of municipalities is the overlap of duties and the lack of clear boundaries of the responsibilities of urban management and government agencies. An issue that shows the necessity of revising the laws related to municipalities.

He added: "Municipalities are non-governmental public institutions and should have powers according to their responsibilities within the framework of the law." However, the expansion of government structures in the field of urban management can lead to a decrease in the independence of municipalities and an increase in overlapping responsibilities.

Referring to the process of amending the urban management laws, Miranjati stated: In the expert reviews, this approach has been proposed that instead of developing an independent urban management law, the capacity of Article 55 of the Municipalities Law should be used to review the duties and complete the powers of the municipalities.

He continued: In these studies, about 20 tasks have been proposed to be added to the current tasks of municipalities, and the proposals for correction have been examined in the Majlis Shura Committee.

Explaining the proposed axes, the senior advisor of the Assembly of Mayors of Iranian Metropolises said: Public transportation, traffic management, terminals and parking lots, waste management, air pollution, environmental health, tourism, city boundary management, dilapidated structures and informal settlements are among the areas that have been considered in the reform proposals.

He added: Also, issues such as cultural affairs and libraries, organizing businesses and trade unions, urban protection and restoration, fire management in urban roads and rivers, and the role of municipalities in managing water and sewage services have been examined.

Emphasizing the necessity of defining the responsibilities of executive bodies, Miranjati said: Transferring duties to municipalities without determining the responsibilities of government bodies will be difficult; Therefore, the duties of each device and how to implement them should be clearly specified in the law.

Ambiguity in the structure of the union and employment system of municipalities

He considered the determination of the legal position of the Union of Municipalities to be one of the issues raised and said: There are ambiguities about the legal basis of this union's activity, the manner of approving the statute and the limits of its authority, which must be resolved so that this group can effectively follow up on the issues and demands of the municipalities.

The senior advisor of the Iranian Metropolitan Mayors' Assembly considered the employment system of the municipalities to be one of the issues that need to be determined and added: "In order to examine the existing obstacles, it is necessary for the related institutions, including the administrative and employment organization of the country and the responsible groups in the field of municipalities, to examine the issue in a joint meeting."

At the end, referring to the proposal of forming a mechanism to transfer the tasks to the municipalities, Miranjati pointed out that the implementation of these reforms requires the precise determination of the responsibilities of the institutions and the removal of legal and executive obstacles so that the tasks are assigned to the city management in a specific and step-by-step manner.