Tasks confined to signing certificates, attesting documents
All of the 120 councillors, including 30 women elected in reserved seats, of the 90 wards of the Dhaka City Corporation do not have much to do but for attesting documents and issuing character certificates, for the people who elect them.
Most of the functions and development works of the corporation are carried out by paid government officials such as executive officers and executive engineers.
The city corporation councillors, according to the Local Government (City Corporation) Act 2009, will only attend different meetings of the corporation, apart from presiding over or being member of the standing committees of the corporation.
There will be 14 standing committees of the city corporation on different areas including budget, waste management, education, city planning and environment. The work of the committees is defined by rules formulated by the corporation with the approval of the government.
Asked about the tasks and responsibilities of the councillors, the mayor of Dhaka, Sadeque Hossain, said, ‘The councillors are discharging their duties by taking part in meetings.’
He, however, could not specify the activities of the councillors. Asked whether they formed the standing committees in keeping with the act, the mayor said, ‘There are standing committees which are functioning.’
Asked whether the corporation has formulated the rules defining the tasks of the standing committees in line with the act, he said, ‘Not yet.’
There are 10 regional executive officers for the 10 zones of the city corporation’s area of jurisdiction who are also responsible for collecting different taxes leaving no job for the councillors.
Other civic amenities such as gas, water and power connections are provided by different government agencies such as the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, Titas, DESA and DESCO.
‘Our tasks are confined to attestation of documents and issuing character certificates,’ Makbul Islam Khan, councillor for Ward 76, told New Age on Thursday as he talked about his responsibilities as a councillor of the locality.
‘People often come to our office with various demands that include repairing street lamps, cleaning of sewers, solving water problems, replacing manhole covers, apart from their various kinds of personal problems,’ he said.
‘Being people’s representatives, we cannot say no to any of their demands. I have to assure them of solving their problems. But most of the tasks are either handled by the bureaucracy of the corporation or by other government agencies,’ Makbul said.
‘If dirty water starts overflowing any WASA sewers, people come straight to us but when we approach WASA officials, they do not heed our complaints,’ he added.
‘Furthermore, we feel embarrassed when people come to us for spraying anti-mosquito chemicals. All that I can do is to make a request to the executive officer for the spray,’ the councillor said.
Ward 40 councillor Anwaruzzaman said they could not provide civic services to the local people as most of the authorities are in the hand of the government agencies.
‘There is no coordination among the government agencies and it results in a mess in providing services,’ he said.
‘People come to us with different kinds of problems. Even we are to solve family disputes and disputes over land, but we do not have any authority for arbitration. Although our rank is not like that of a gazetted officer, we have to attest different documents of the people,’ he said.
He said if the councillors had some judicial powers, many disputes could have been resolved in the localities, reducing the pressure on court.
Anwaruzzaman said that holding and other taxes are collected by the zonal offices of the city corporation. He said if councillors had the authority to collect taxes, a higher amount of taxes would have been collected.
Mahmuda Begum, the councillor elected in the reserved seat for woman for Ward 2, said bureaucratic tangle in the corporation often delays the providing of services which put the councillors in an embarrassing situation.
‘There is no mechanism to make DCC officials accountable to the people’s representative. The board meeting of the corporation is held twice a year,’ she said.
‘If the board meeting was held every month, we could make DCC officials accountable,’ she observed.
As the councillors do not have any major responsibilities, most of them set up offices at their own houses to avoid attending DCC office regularly.
