No power yet most sought-after
By the looks of it, city councillors' job is not that appealing. They have little power to exercise and all they get to do is sign some certificates and monitor civic services such as waste management and maintenance of street lights in their wards.
Yet, 679 candidates are at a rat race to win the 93 councillor posts in today's polls in the two Dhaka city corporations.
So what's the catch? The answer is simple: A councillor has many unofficial gains, including establishing supremacy in the area, controlling tenders of development projects and making a mint out of those.
And if he happens to be from the ruling party, he can use his political influence more than those from the opposition, said a number of former councillors and candidates running for the post.
Under the law, councillors are empowered to issue 17 types of certificates, including that for birth, death, citizenship and inheritance. They get a monthly pay of Tk 27,500 -- Tk 17,500 in honorarium, up to Tk 8,000 in office rent and up to Tk 2,000 for hospitality and other purposes.
In addition, they attend the general meeting and standing committee meetings of city corporations and can formulate development plans for their wards and submit those for inclusion in development programmes.
“Ward councillors have neither any power in the city corporation nor do they get any significant amount of salary. The main reason behind contesting for the post is to establish authority in the area and secure illegal benefits using that power,” Badiul Alam Majumder, a local government expert, told The Daily Star.
Ward councillors do not have that much job to do other than issuing certificates, he added.
Asked about illegal benefits, Ariful Islam Arif, a councillor of ward-19 (now in Dhaka south) for the last 18 years, said, "If a councillor belongs to the party in power, he has much scope to exert influence and gain many benefits. But it is not possible if he is from the opposition parties."
In today's polls, 289 councillor candidates are running in the 57 wards of Dhaka South City Corporation and 390 aspirants in the 36 wards of Dhaka North City Corporation.
A number of sitting councillors and contesting candidates said councillors' main source of income was development activities in their areas, as no contractor can implement any development programmes without their consent. Another source of making money is construction work since it is almost impossible to do that without making them “happy”.
Councillors in commercial areas make way more money than those in non-commercial areas, they added.
Mokhlesur Rahman, an AL rebel councillor candidate for ward-35 under DNCC, said he wanted to be councillor as people respected and honoured him.
“Besides, if you are a councillor, everybody knows you,” he added.
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