CORRUPTION and irregularities in the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority have taken a new height with the allegation that the agency runs without following its organisational mandate and related rules. The Dhaka WASA board chair levelled the allegation in writing to the Local Government Division on May 17, saying that the agency’s managing director Taqsem A Khan has turned it into a ‘den of corruption’. The Water Supply and Sewerage Authority Act 1996 makes mandatory a board meeting every two months, but the managing director often ignores this obligation and runs the agency at will. When the board has rejected the proposal for distributing Tk 30 crore in performance bonus to employees, the managing director defied the board’s decision and distributed the money as festival allowance. The chair also alleges that the misrule and abuse of power have become norms in everyday WASA operation. There are reportedly instances in which WASA employees were removed from the job for speaking up against the misrule. Neither the managing director nor the local government minister has addressed the concern made in the complaint. Government inaction appears to have made corruption chronic in the agency.

The water supply authorities for Dhaka have been mired in controversy over allegations of massive corruption for nearly a decade now. In 2019, a survey by Transparency International Bangladesh said that 62 per cent of the people seeking water and sewer connections from WASA became victims of corruption, harassment, and irregularities. In 2020, ignoring widespread criticism, the government reappointed Taqsem A Khan the managing director of WASA for three more years. Many read the reappointment as an implicit endorsement of the corrupt organisational culture. Although the Anti-Corruption Commission has occasionally initiated investigation and filed cases against corrupt WASA officials, it has failed to establish accountability as ranking officials are not held accountable. In June 2022, a case was filed against nine people, including the managing director, on charges of embezzling Tk 132.4 crore from the fund of Karmachari Bahumukhi Samabay Samity Ltd. In January, when a number of media reported on the WASA managing director’s illegal wealth and his property in foreign countries, the commission requested the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit to ‘look into the matter.’ However, no significant progress in the investigation has been forthcoming.

Misrule as a norm in a public agency is a serious allegation that the government must take into account and initiate a credible investigation immediately. The local government ministry should address the concerns made by the Dhaka WASA board and consider removing the managing director for the sake of a credible investigation. The Anti-Corruption Commission must abandon the strategy of dilly-dallying the investigation of the allegations against ranking government officials. The corrupt organisational culture does not support the government’s claim to have zero tolerance of corruption.