The concept of decentralisation and local government has gained much attention in recent years after the idea has been constantly promoted by opposition parties and leading research groups in Malaysia.

However, one that might not be familiar with the concept might ask these series of questions: What is decentralisation? What are the roles of a local government? What benefits might it bring to us as a community? This article will attempt to provide more insights and understanding of the concept.

Decentralisation is the process of dispersing or redistributing powers, functions, population and so on away from a central authority or location. Local government on the other hand, will normally only have authority over their specific geographical area and do not have the powers to pass or enforce laws that affect a wider region. The concept of decentralisation and local government are normally both interrelated to each other and linked together.

At present day, most countries of the developing nation, Malaysia included, are too concentric and centralised, where the entire country is governed through a centralised body in their respective capital cities. To make matters worse, administrative bodies, job opportunities and other major activities are too concentrated in that particular area, resulting in unequal growth within the country.

This scenario of inequality can also be reflected by looking at the enormous disparities of the budget size between federal and state level governments. Looking at the year 2014 as an example, the Penang state government only allocated a budget of RM962.2 Million, while on the other hand, the federal government of Malaysia allocated a budget of RM264.2 billion at the same year, a budget size of around 275 times bigger.

The implications of having such an imbalance of budget between federal and state levels will without doubt promote corruption and inefficiencies in management, further building the case of decentralisation and local government.

Many countries around the world have started to embrace the concept of decentralisation by gradually providing more powers to local governments. Looking at an example of the United Kingdom, the British Chancellor George Osborne recently acknowledged in the House of Commons that a centralized government is a tested but failed model in the past 50 years.

As a result of that, the Tory-majority government promised to promote greater devolution and cede more powers to large urban agglomerates and local governments. Hence, Greater Manchester is chosen to be the pioneering region for the provision of more power on taxation, transport, as well as welfare aspects. So, what are the benefits of adopting a decentralised system?

First of all, the increased power of local governments provide more freedom and flexibility for regions to make decisions at a local level. This can be extremely beneficial as the local community would without doubt understand their own backyard better, as well as having the flexibility to suit different needs in their own respective regions, rather than having one model that fits all.

Looking at the model of the European Union on Sustainable Waste Management, it is the European Parliament that sets a target (e.g. achieving 50 percent of recycling rate by 2020 - EU Waste Framework Directive), while it is up to member states and local governments who decides how to achieve the goal.

Similarly, this same concept can be directly applied to the case of Malaysia, where the federal government can still play a crucial role in setting a goal, as well as providing support for state and local governments to devise their plans in achieving it.

By adopting this strategy in giving powers to local government on waste management, this allows local authorities to optimise their own infrastructure to suit local needs. For example, an urban area in Penang would produce more municipal solid waste (MSW), compared to a padi-centric economy in Kedah which produces a majority of biodegradable green waste.

Having said that, these different types of waste will require different infrastructures, such as recycling facilities for municipal solid waste, and anaerobic digestion plants/composting for biodegradable green waste.

Next, decentralisation also enables local services to be run more efficiently and effectively. This can be explained as local governments hold the decision making power lower down the management hierarchy. Instead of constantly referring to the federal government, the speed of the decision making process can be enhanced by eliminating the need to go through multiple stages for different local issues to be resolved.

Improvement of public transport

One of the examples related to this factor include the improvement of public transportation. For example, a local government in Penang would almost certainly, if not definitely understand the transportation demands of a specific route much better than the federal government.

At present, planning and designing a simple bus route in any corner of the country still require approval at the federal level. These tedious decision making process would normally take weeks or even months for it to be reviewed.

To make matters worse, there will still be a possibility for the new bus route being rejected for no specific reasons after weeks of waiting time. Hence, with local governments holding the authority to make transportation decisions, the speed of approving and resolving local transportation issues will be increased.

In addition to that, it also enables a shorter reaction time for local governments to cope with fluctuations in demand in terms of deciding the quantity of buses needed in a specific route at a specific time.

Finally, according to a study conducted by a UK Market Research Company Ipsos MORI, councilors in local governments are surprisingly more trustworthy than Members of Parliaments in the same constituency.

The findings arise as councilors are often more accessible as they are stationed in their local area, compared to Members of Parliament which spend most of their time in Parliament or the capital city.

This increases the difficulty and reduces the opportunity available for the local community to meet their own MPs for assistance and support. Hence, this study implies that local governments can be hold more accountable in almost every aspect, further promoting the case for decentralisation.

Nevertheless, after discussing about the advantages and benefits of decentralisation and local government, executing it still remains a challenge as federal governments around the world are never really enthusiastic about the idea. Decentralisation in the views of the federal government would imply giving their powers away, as well as having their big budgets trimmed down by allocating more proportion of their funds to local governments.

The federal government would potentially also argue that decentralisation and having freedom at a local level will lead to different service standards across the country. However, there is no concrete evidence suggesting that this statement will hold true. In fact, even with a highly centralised management structure of Malaysia, there is still a clear disproportion of service standards between East and West Malaysia.

As competition increases, different local governments would certainly compete for the best service standards and work hard to avoid the embarrassment of being the worst performer in the country.

In conclusion, the case of decentralisation and authorizing more power to local governments is strong with obvious benefits outweighing the negatives. If countries around the world such as the United Kingdom are gradually moving towards decentralisation, I believe that Malaysia, with one of the most centralised government structures in the world should too follow in step.

ROGER TEOH is a member of the Democratic Action Party, a postgraduate student studying for an MSc in Transport Engineering at Imperial College London.