409 municipality officials made accountable in Azerbaijan last year

On Tuesday, Azerbaijani parliament’s committee on regional affairs held a hearing on the annual report about the administrative control on the municipal activity, the parliament sources said.

Chief of the Justice Ministry’s department for work with municipalities Mehdi Salimzadeh told the committee that 569 new municipalities were created in Azerbaijan in 2010 merging 1552 out of 1567 municipalities according to the laws adopted in 2009 for strengthening the role of self-administration in local issues. 40 new municipalities, mergers of 84 municipalities, were created in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

Relevant processes were conducted for hand- and takeover of property, financial resources and others. Only 15 self-administrative structures didn’t attend the take- and handover processes because they failed to hold municipal elections. According to the materials submitted by the merger commissions, serious law infringements were identified during these processes and materials were sent to the general prosecutor’s office for investigation.

The committee members said earlier there was only organization to control all municipalities in the country, but heavy schedule created some problems for the Center for Work with Municipalities and taking it into account, regional justice departments were created in the regions and staff members of these departments passed trainings in the Academy of Justice.

Salimzadeh said 26 635 municipal acts were reviewed in 2010 and the cases if illegal land distribution were prevented. 409 municipal officials were brought to the administrative responsibility and the municipalities received necessary recommendations to prevent law infringements.

Salimzadeh also mentioned the necessity of some legislative acts for improvement of social conditions of the municipality members. After the discussions, the report was sent to the parliament.


/APA/