Dwellers suffer as municipality staff on strike for 18 days

The people living in the municipalities across the country continued to suffer as they have been deprived of the civic services due to the ongoing strike called by the officials and employees of the country’s 327 municipalities demanding payment of their salaries, wages and retirement benefits outstanding for years.

Citizens of different municipalities said that cleaners stopped cleaning roads and sewerage lines or spraying larvicide while officials stopped issuing trade licenses, birth certificates or providing other services since the Bangladesh Pourasava Service Association called strike on July 14 and started seat-in in Dhaka.

The association leaders from the municipalities across the country have been continuing their protest programmes for the last 18 days in front of the Jatiya Press Club demanding immediate payment of their due salaries worth Tk 692 crore and retirement benefits worth Tk 119 crore.

They also demand assurance of getting salaries regularly from the revenue budget.

The New Age correspondents in different districts taking random interviews of residents of the municipalities reported that people were having bad time in moving through the streets full of garbage. In some areas street lights were not switched on at night.

Sirajganj civil surgeon Dr Zahidul Islam told our correspondent there that he anticipated increase in different diseases in the flood-affected district for absence of any cleaning activities in the municipalities of the district.

‘The garbage dumped on roads and into drains must be removed immediately,’ Zahidul said.

Trishal resident Zaman Shah told the Mymensigh New Age correspondent that his family members were struggling to stay at home for odour coming out of the garbage piled up in front of their house.

Muktagachha resident Abu Musa told the correspondent that waterlogging appeared as a great problem.

‘We are very much concerned that dengue may break out in our area,’ Musa said.

‘I’m highly anxious as I couldn’t get my trade license renewed; it’s needed at a bank to sanction a loan for me,’ beauty parlour owner Cynthia Aktar told our Munshiganj correspondent.

Noakhali’s Liaquat Ali told our correspondent there that he could not sell his land as he could not collect some documents from the municipality office.

Bangladesh Association of Pourasava Service leaders, however, said that they would not resume their work unless they got confirmation from the government of getting their due salaries and benefits immediately.

Over 35,000 employees of 260 municipalities have not been getting salaries and wages for seven years, they said.

They claimed that they had written on several occasions to the local government, rural development and cooperatives ministry, demanding payment of 75 per cent salaries and wages of the municipality staffs and honorarium of the councillors and mayors centrally from the ministry from the revenue budget as the union parishad officials, chairmen and councillors get.

They also demanded payment of their outstanding salaries and wages from grants made by the finance ministry and gratuity, provident fund and other retirement benefits centrally from a block allocation which the ministry should take from the government, they said.

The association general secretary M Shahidul Islam Biswas said that their demands remained ignored though they had been negotiating with the LGRD ministry for the past two years.

Some municipalities did not pay salaries for 80 months while many retired officials died without getting any benefit, he said. 

Till December 2018, an inquiry committee of the LGRD ministry in its report states that the 327 municipalities owe Tk 692 crore to their 34,415 officers and employees, of whom 1,274 are Grade 1 and 2 officials, 11,424 Grade 3 and 4 employees and 21,717 are muster-roll workers.

It reads that 977 retired officials and employees were not paid benefits worth Tk 119.82 crore.

The annual revenue earned by the 327 municipalities is Tk 1,202.78 crore while their expenditures amount to Tk 1,233.88 crore, states the report, adding that Tk 836 crore additional was required for paying salaries.

The committee has recommended paying out the arrear salaries and wages to the staffs of the municipalities taking special grants centrally through the LGRD ministry as the existing Local Government (City Corporation) (Amended) Act, 2009 did not allow taking municipality employees and workers under revenue budget.   

LGRD ministry officials said that a Tk 346 crore grant was sought from the finance ministry on June 3 to pay out the due salaries to the staffs of the municipalities.

‘We are looking for the ways to solve the problem soon in the public interest,’ LGRD minister Md Tajul Islam told New Age on Tuesday.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net