Dhaka, April 3 (bdnews24.com)- After weeks of suspense over the control of NAM flats, former lawmakers still residing in them demanded Thursday that authorities cancel allotment of the plush apartments to government officials.
At present, officials of various ministries, the Anticorruption Commission and the Special Security Force (SSF) inhabit many of the flats vacated by 137 former lawmakers in line with a government order.
At a news conference Thursday, the ex-MPs from major political parties demanded that the Parliament Secretariat take back control of the flats and cancel allocations to the government officials.
They questioned why the flats managed by the Parliament Secretariat would go to the hands of government servants.
"I demand the Parliament Secretariat cancel the allotment of the flats already given to the public servants," Shajahan Khan, an ex-MP from the Awami League, told the news conference.
He said the former lawmakers were fighting to "thwart a conspiracy designed to occupy the property of the Parliament Secretariat".
The Ministry of Housing and Public Works had earlier asked the MPs to vacate the 324 NAM flats on Manik Mia Avenue and in Nakhalpara.
The Parliament Secretariat handed over 137 NAM flats to the ministry on the condition that the flats would again go under the secretariat's jurisdiction as soon as the official results of the ninth parliament are declared.
Mehedi Ahmed Rumi, a former BNP MP, said the NAM flats were the property of the Parliament Secretariat and they should be renamed as apartments for members of parliament, as per a previous decision of the Sangsad Committee.
"If the Parliament Secretariat does not take measures to rename the NAM flat complex as Member of Parliament Building, the ex-MPs will do the job on their own," said Khan.
The secretary to the housing ministry and some other government officials are more interested than the government itself in evicting the former MPs from the NAM flats, said BNP lawmaker Selim Reza Habib.
He however said they would not object to vacate the flats if the Parliament Secretariat assured them that the flats would be not be allotted to anyone else.
"But we do not believe that the flats would remain vacant as some of them have already been allotted to the government officials".
Shajahan Khan said they were ready to compromise on the matter with the government. "We support the Speaker's initiative to resolve the problems through dialogue," he said.
The government and the MPs have been at loggerhead as the housing ministry unilaterally asked the former lawmakers to either vacate the flats by March 31 or pay Tk 28,000 per month as rent.
But speaker Muhammad Jamiruddin Sircar in a letter to the chief adviser on March 30 said the NAM flats were the property of the Parliament Secretariat. Neither the government nor the speaker had the authority to cancel the decision of the Sangsad Committee of the 8th Parliament, he said.
Sircar in his letter proposed that the issue could be resolved through holding a joint meeting of the MPs, officials of the Parliament Secretariat and the housing ministry with the law adviser as arbitrator.
The speaker also proposed that the issue could be referred to the Supreme Court for legal opinion.
The Sangsad Committee on 26 Sept, 2006, decided that the MPs could continue to live in the NAM flats without rent until publication of the official results of the ninth parliamentary elections. The former MPs currently pay only service charges.
The committee oversees the housing, foods and other requirements and facilities of the MPs in line with the Rules of Procedure of the Jatiya Sangsad.
bdnews24.com/krc/jr/rah/1524hours
