Taqsem made MD for the seventh time
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Upon Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s approval, Taqsem’s appointment was finalised.
Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority is governed by the Wasa Act passed in 1996. According to it, the chief executive officer of the organisation is supposed to be the managing director.
The government appoints people to such posts through the LGRD ministry, upon a proposal or recommendation from Wasa. However, the law does not state anything about how many times or for how many years the same person can serve in the post.
Taqsem has been the Dhaka Wasa MD for the past 14 years after getting his first appointment on October 14, 2009.
Since then, many complaints had surfaced against Dhaka Wasa for actions and decisions that include supplying contaminated water in residential areas, increasing the water tariff by up to 15 times, undertaking ineffective projects in the name of “improving services” at the expense of crores of taka.
The recently-sacked Wasa board chairman Engineer Gholam Mostofa wrote a letter to the Local Government Department highlighting various irregularities of Wasa under Taqsem’s tenures.
The LGRD ministry then removed Mostafa from his post on May 21.
Despite severe criticism from various quarters regarding Wasa services, Taqsem, who is a US citizen along with his wife and children, has held onto his post.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Mozammel Haque, president of Dhaka Wasa’s Kormokorta Kormochari Oikya Parishad (Officers and Employees Union Council), said the government should not have reappointed a controversial person like Taqsem.
“He [Taqsem] was desperate to get reappointed for his own personal interest as this organisation is like a gold mine for him,” said Mozammel, also an executive engineer of Dhaka Wasa.
Gholam Mostofa, who is in London now, told this correspondent over the phone that what he had said earlier about the MD is still valid.
In an earlier interview with this newspaper, he had said, “Wasa has become Taqsem A Khan’s ‘personal property’.”
He added that the MD’s monthly salary has increased by 421 percent over the last 12 years – which currently is now Tk 6.25 lakh per month. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, it was increased by Tk 1.75 lakh.
Questions have surfaced about keeping him in the same position despite allegations of corruption and irregularities.
Mozammel Haque said Taqsem has done nothing extraordinary in the position for him to be able to retain it for another three years.
“Traditionally, one should also not stay in the same position for long as it blocks the path for new leadership.”
In 2019, the MD faced huge public outrage after claiming that Wasa-supplied water was 100 percent drinkable.
He made the claim at a press conference arranged to refute allegations made by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB).
TIB, after a year-long study titled “Dhaka Wasa: Challenges of Good Governance and Way Forward”, revealed their findings in April 2019, where it mentioned how 91 percent of the 2,728 connections and service recipients of Wasa surveyed in Dhaka had to boil the water to make it drinkable.
In the process, they burnt gas worth Tk 332 crore a year.
TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman said, “The incumbent Dhaka Wasa MD’s extension for the seventh term is highly disappointing for Dhaka dwellers, though not at all surprising.
“He has already demonstrated that his power base is much deeper and stronger than the impact of the collective, long accumulated frustrations and dissatisfactions of the people that the organisation is supposed to serve.”
He added, “The extension is an example of malicious disregard for the fate of the consumers who have been subjected to arbitrary and extortionist imposition of the ever-increasing cost of the lowest possible quality of the supplied water, which the MD publicly recognised as not good enough for himself to drink.
“This decision also represents a blatant insensitivity to allegations of institutionalisation of corruption in project implementation and abuse of power by which an unaccountable authoritarian regime has been established, including dysfunctionality and subservience of the Dhaka Wasa board to the MD.”
This is also an ominous precedence for other similar entities, which is the last thing to be accepted in a democratically governed society, Iftekharuzzaman said.
Despite repeated attempts, Taqsem could not be reached over the phone for comments on his reappointment.
FAZLULLAH REAPPOINTED AS CTG WASA MD
AKM Fazlullah, managing director of Chattogram Wasa, has been reappointed to his position for another three years.
A gazette was issued by Local Government Division in this regard yesterday.
“I was not interested in serving as MD again, but I will have to do it to meet the requests of the Wasa board members,” Fazlullah claimed.
The 81-year-old was made the Chattogram Wasa chairman on July 6, 2009. He was appointed as the MD after the post was created in 2011.
His current fifth term is set to expire on October 31.