Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh has said that a total of 38 officials and employees have been sacked in the last four years on charges of negligence and corruption.
He disclosed the information while addressing a press briefing titled 'Four years of advancement of modern Dhaka city' at Nagar Bhaban in the capital on Sunday, marking the anniversary of his taking office as a city father.
"Since the very first day of my taking the charge, I have been following a zero-tolerance policy aiming to check irregularities, negligence and corruption at all levels of the DSCC," the mayor said. "It's a continuous process as part of our administrative reform efforts. So far, we have dismissed 38 officials and other staff members of the DSCC over the last four years for negligence and corruption," he continued.
Mr Taposh further said 143 drivers (of heavy vehicles), 66 sub-assistant engineers, 77 account assistants, 27 revenue supervisors, 31 cleanliness inspectors, 20 spray men supervisors have been appointed in the last four years.
He said that the process is also underway to appoint 217 more manpower.
"I pledged during the mayoral election that I would not impose tax burden on Dhaka city-dwellers and will ensure good governance. So, we haven't increased the tax rate in the last four years," he maintained.
"Rather we've created 25 new sectors and we started realising taxes from 14 new sectors."
During the corona virus pandemic, the DSCC has created a history of collecting corporation taxes that are still moving forward, the DSCC mayor said.
Mr Taposh said that taxes collected by the DSCC was over Tk 5.13 billion in the 2019-2020 fiscal year which were over Tk 7.03 billion, over Tk 8.79 billion and over Tk 10.31 billion in the 2020-2021, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 fiscal years respectively.
The city father further said that taxes collected until April of the 2023-2024 fiscal year was Tk 540 million more compared to the corresponding period of the last fiscal.
"So we will be able to surpass our previous milestone during the current fiscal year," he said with an upbeat tone.
He also said that waterlogging doesn't appear in most of the areas of the capital, except Kamalapur, Green Road and New Market, due to the ongoing project work.
He, however, said waterlogging in those areas will be solved soon.
Mr Taposh mentioned that 11 playgrounds in DSCC areas were modernised or established over the last four years.
He said that work is also underway to establish new playgrounds at five wards of the DSCC. Responding to a query, he reiterated his claim that the DSCC has succeeded in controlling the dengue outbreak.
"We've detected 9,764 dengue patients from January to October 31 last year in the DSCC areas. During that time, the number of total dengue patients across the country was 271,175 which was only 3.60 per cent (in DSCC areas). So, we've successfully controlled dengue," he asserted.
talhabinhabib@yahoo.com