CAB blasts Wasa for ‘passing its graft burden on to people’

The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) is trying to pass the responsibility of its mismanagement, corruption and extravagance on to the public by increasing water prices, alleged the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) on Tuesday.

While presenting a keynote at a meeting, Kazi Abdul Hannan, a member of CAB and also editor of Bhoktakantha, said Wasa is a non-profit institution, but it now focuses on making money rather than rendering services.

Wasa has proposed a 20% hike in water tariffs though it already raised the prices two times in the pandemic time, he said, adding that the institution can cut down on its unnecessary spending and make adjustments to its deficits. There is no need for the price hike.

Since Wasa's Managing Director Taqsem A Khan assumed office in 2009, he has hiked water prices 14 times, and his salary and other perks saw as much as 421% rise. The institution that relies on subsidies from the government pays its chief executive a salary of Tk6.25 lakh a month, according to the keynote.

Yet, water supplied by Wasa is undrinkable and Dhaka city residents need to boil it to make it drinkable, Abdul Hannan noted.

Some 70% of localities, which get Wasa's water supplies, are out of its sewerage network, but it is unjustly realising sewer service bills from the consumers. To date, Wasa has not bothered about 11 instances of corruption and waste of government funds identified by the Anti-Corruption Commission, according to the CAB. 

The main task of the state is to provide relief to its people, but now it seems that Bangladesh is turning into a business enterprise, said CAB President Ghulam Rahman.

"Some bureaucrats want to make the country a business [enterprise]. There are some politicians involved in this too. If the people are oppressed this way, the government's development will fade away," he added.

These people are busy hiking the prices of oil, gas, electricity and water without thinking about the people's suffering, he said.

The CAB president said, "If we look at Wasa's balance sheet, it does not seem that the institution is going through any losses." 

In fact, they made a profit of Tk50 crore in 2021, and Wasa officials and employees were given bonuses from this amount, the CAB president pointed out, further criticising the latest attempt to increase water tariffs in the capital.

"How can the salary of the Wasa managing director be over Tk6 lakh?" Ghulam Rahman questioned.

Prof Dr M Shamsul Alam, senior vice-president at the CAB, "We now have our backs against the wall. We cannot tolerate any more hike."