Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) had invited tenders to lease the Gabtoli bus terminal in the city for one year. The organisation also sold tender documents to seven individuals and organisations. But none of them submitted the documents on the appointed day.
The tender documents were bought by six leaders and activists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its affiliated organisations and one by a Jatiya Party leader.
DNCC officials say that the BNP leaders did not submit the schedule, apparently to take the lease at a lower rate than the government offered one.
One of the officials said that the total lease value of the terminal is around Tk 49.3 million including 15 per cent VAT and 10 per cent income tax. That means, the daily charge is about Tk 135,000.
The relevant BNP leaders are considering taking the lease of the terminal now as a loss due to the impact of the movement of Students against Discrimination and the interim government.
They are devising ways to control the terminal without taking a lease.
Meanwhile, the DNCC authorities have formed a five-member committee to collect khas until leasing out the terminals. But the activities of the committee are limited to paper only.
Actually, the leaders and activists of BNP have taken control of the collection of khas from various sectors of the terminal since the fall of Sheikh Hasina government in the face of student-people movement on 5 August and her leaving the country that day.
The BNP leaders, however, say that if VAT and income tax are combined with the fixed lease rate, the total amount would be about Tk 50 million. It is impossible to recover this money within one year in the current condition of the terminal.
After analysing everything, they decided not to submit the schedule, they added.
Purchase of schedules
The DNCC authorities called tender on 20 August to lease the terminal. Seven schedules were sold as of 4 September. Two of the buyers were BNP leaders, former organising secretary of Swechchhashebok Dal’s Dhaka city unit and DNCC ward 9 councillor candidate (2019 election) Saidul Islam and the former joint secretary of Dhaka city west Chhatra Dal, Sohel Rahman.
These two leaders were the representatives of the former president of BNP’s Darussalam unit president SA Siqqique alias Saju. Locals said both of them collected the schedules on behalf of Saju, the son of the late BNP lawmaker from Dhaka-14 constituency SA Khaleque.
Other than this, former BNP councillor from DNCC ward 11 Shamim Pervez collected three schedules. He is also a former publicity secretary of Chhatra Dal’s central committee. He purchased two schedules using the name of his two companies – M/S Zafana Enterprise and M/S Obaid Jahan Traders and another one in the name of his brother-in-law Sifat Yunus alias Lenin.
BNP’s Darussalam unit senior vice president Abu Sayem Mondal and Jatiya Party leader purchased the remaining two schedules.
A call from ‘Mr Saju’
Prothom Alo spoke to leaders of BNP and its affiliated bodies about skipping the submission after purchasing schedules. They claimed they had analysed daily revenue and the lease seemed to incur losses. On the other hand, the Jatiya Party leader said they could not submit the schedules after failing to arrange the money.
Shamim Pervez told Prothom Alo, “Mr Saju called me over the phone and said brother, stop by my place. He said, if you take the schedule through this process, will you have anything out of it? In fact, you will have nothing. Let us wait a bit to see if the government reduces the lease price a little. If the schedule is not submitted repeatedly, the government price might fall at one point and they might call us. So, we do not that this risk and none file the submission.”
Sohel Rahman and Saidul Islam purchased schedules on behalf of Saju as his ‘political junior brothers’, according to Shamim Pervez.
Saidul Islam claimed he did not submit the tender after estimating that the government would incur a loss. BNP leader Abu Syem echoed Saidul Islam saying, “If we participate in tender at the existing rate we would face loss.”
On the other hand, Jatiya Party’s Masum Khan said, “We formed a partnership of 7-8 people, but two of us could not give the money and they informed us at the last moment.”
No control of city authorities over the terminal
This correspondent spoke to several officials and employees of DNCC’s transport division and zone-4 (under Gabtoli terminal and zone) about the sale of schedules and the khas collection process. They said the DCNN authorities formed a committee to collect khas money, but the city corporation has no control over the terminal. Besides, there is not enough manpower to maintain khas collection, and BNP leaders and activists are taking advantage of it. They give the city corporation about Tk 100,000 every day to keep their profits.
Locals said SA Siddique controls the Gabtoli terminal while Saidul Islam and Sohel Rahman look after everything including khas money collection on SA Siddique’s behalf, while Nurul Islam alias Lall, a member of Transport Owners’ Association, supervises the collection directly.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, SA Siddique said, “I am no stakeholder here. Why would I tell them or sit with them? No such meeting was held with me. I purchased no schedule and I do not know the persons you named either.”
Regarding the control of the terminal, he said, “Someone might cooperate personally in collecting money on a daily wage basis or for other rewards, and Nurul Islam alias Lal whose name you mentioned is not from BNP.”
Regarding the overall issue, DNCC’s transport department general manager Abdullah Al Masud told Pothom Alo, “There is three more deadlines to submit schedules. If no submission is filed, a decision will be taken later after discussing with higher authorities.” He, however, admits to locals who are from BNP maintaining the khas money collection in the area.