Dissemination of the Administrative Decentralisation and Local Government Policy in Liquiçá District
On May 2, 2013 Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão was in Liquiçá, the seventh district to be visited by him, in the framework of the dissemination of the Administrative Decentralisation and Local Government.
During the meeting with the population, the Liquiçá district Administrator, Domingos dos Santos, expressed his gratitude for the visit of the Prime Minister to the district “in order to closely see our real situation for himself, listen to our opinions, witness and our commitment, assess our readiness to face “the big wave coming on our way”– the Administrative Decentralisation and Local Government Plan and the implementation of the City Hall. In order to reach that goal one needs to consider some indicators, such as, for instance, human resources.”
Domingos dos Santos clarified that, as regards the readiness, “we can say we, the sons of Liquiçá, are ready. As Your Excellency may note for yourself, the people, the youth, the veterans, as well the intellectuals and businessmen all came with enthusiasm and spirit of unity, a trait proper of the sons of Liquiçá, to listen and express their readiness to carry out the functions assigned to them. We willingly wish to know the manner in which the Central Government approaches the transition process of the Local Government onto the district”.
The Prime Minister explained that “municipalisation means that the Government gets closer to the People, transferring competencies to the People in order to reduce bureaucracy. This is why we consider that implementing Municipalities in Timor-Leste is like a second independence for the Country.”
The Head of Government added that the main objective of the meeting was “to get to understand the advantages that will result from the implementation of the municipality. If we compare our municipalisation process to the one existing in Portugal or in Indonesia, we will understand that we are still not on the same stage, we are still at the beginning of the process; we have to face several problems in our society at the cultural, economic and social level. For this reason, let us attempt to adapt a model that can be applied in our country, a model that is more adequate to our current levels.”
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão also encouraged the intellectuals, the professionals, the veterans as well as the community leaders to get together and define competencies and identify the potentialities and the challenges for the development of Liquiçá in the framework of the municipalisation process. The can do so through the Installation Committee, which will be the mechanism for the implementation of the Municipality.
The district of Liquiçá has 543 km². It is made up of three sub-districts and 23 sucos, and has approximately 69,900 inhabitants. The potentialities of economic development of the district are: agriculture and horticulture, tourism, traditional handicraft and fisheries.
