AS Bangladesh, especially the capital is reeling under massive dengue outbreak, mobile courts run by Dhaka’s two city corporations are penalising the residents keeping public places and government establishments hosting aedes mosquito breeding grounds out of purview.
Dengue has already claimed at least 113 lives and at least 55,000 dengue patients are in hospitals across the country. Dhaka South City Corporation Chief Health Officer Brigadier General Sharif Ahmed said that the city corporation requested the concern government officials to keep their infrastructure clean after destroying breeding spots but they paid no attention.
Mobile courts of both city corporations in the capital are taking punitive actions against the residents for having mosquito breeding spots inside their boundary but gave impunity to its own and government establishments. Officials said that the DSCC and the Dhaka North City Corporation continued to run at least 13 mobile courts against the house owners and fined over Tk 75 lakh and jailed two for having aedes larva inside their homes.
The city corporations are actually harassing residents during a period of disaster caused for the failure of the agencies to control mosquitoes. They are thus abusing their own power to hide the fact that they have shirked their responsibilities. It is thus a mere evasion of the fact that they have been unable to perform their own roles.
But shifting the blame in such a blatant manner will only make the citizens more enraged. Public spaces mostly owned by city corporations and other government agencies provide the aedes mosquito breeding grounds but no drives were held against them so far. Bus terminals, markets, hospitals, schools, dumping stations, railway stations and other offices were at high risk of mosquito breeding for negligence of the agencies.
Firstly the DCC should fine its corrupt officials for negligence in combatting the mosquito menace by bringing in substandard insecticides. Then it can sue public bodies for providing breeding grounds for mosquito larvae. Only when they have completed the above tasks can they think about fining members of the general public.
These actions remind us of the old adage of the pot calling the kettle black. When the public bodies are themselves at fault under what right or logic can they fine private citizens.
