The Association of Palestinian Local Authorities (APLA) convened its 5th Administrative Committee meeting, chaired by its president Eng. Mousa Hadid with the presence of APLA’s Executive Director Eng. Abdallah Anati and the Administrative Committee Members held in the City of Ramallah. The meeting discussed many topics and highlighted the required preparations to conduct APLA’s General Assembly meeting, reviewing the laws and regulations related to Local Government Units’ work, in addition to the activities and programs APLA worked on throughout the past months.
The Administrative Committee assigned its members to communicate with the LGUs in various governorates to pay their membership fees for APLA for the year 2018, and that is within the required preparation to conduct the General Assembly meeting no later than March 2018. A committee was formed from the Administrative Committee Members in order to conduct field visits to the LGUs within a set program which includes the largest number of LGUs.
The Administrative Committee Members also discussed the comments regarding the Social Security Law, and the proposed Bylaw which regulates the admission of LGUs staff to the Social Security Law. Also, the Administrative Committee discussed the new law related to “LGUs’ courts” in addition to the lore tax, upon that, the Administrative Committee decided to form a Committee from its members (Policy Committee) to review and study the laws and regulations, and feedback received from the LGUs to prepare a united position papers as it will be followed up with relevant Authorities.
The Administrative Committee then reviewed the latest updates related to APLA’s external relationships, as they approved the executive work plan outline for the conducted agreement between APLA and the International City Managers Association (ICMA), and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which was recently signed with Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (ISKI). The Administrative Committee also decided to start working to sign a cooperation agreement between APLA and its Turkish counterpart based on the visit of APLAs’ Executive Director to the Turkish Municipalities Association.
In terms of APLA’s activities and programs, the Administrative Committee affirmed the importance of finalizing APLA’s strategic plan for the years 2019-2022 before the end of this year, as it also reviewed the general framework of the new Technical Hub project executed in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), stressing the need to expand the beneficiary Municipalities circle and establish a special hub for Village Councils.
