In the wealth statements submitted for the Barisal City Corporation mayoral race by candidates to the Election Commission, immediate past mayor Shawkat Hossain Hiron, also chief of ruling Awami League’s city unit and their candidate for the polls, claimed a 60 times rise in income while in office and a 55 time rise of assets. In 2008, the mayoral candidate showed a total earning of Tk580,250 from business ventures, house rent, directorial post and ownership in three business enterprise and around Tk1.93m of fixed and tangible assets.
By the end of his tenure in office, in his 2013 statement submitted to the EC, the annual income rose to Tk34.91m, attributed to Tk32.63m from businesses, Tk90,000 from house rent, Tk17,000 from agricultural land, Tk1.7m in pay as mayor, Tk8,500 from agriculture and Tk125,300 from other sources.
His assets were valued at Tk107.87m, including 100 acres of agricultural land, flats at Dhaka’s Gulshan and Uttara, buildings at Barisal’s posh Club Road area and under construction building at Rupatali, car, bus, two cargo vessels, and capital market investments valued at roughly Tk6.5m.
He has ownerships or shares in 11 business firms including a private medical college and hospital, pharmaceutical company, two business and construction firms, shipping, road transport companies, diagnostics facility, medical service centre, Chinese restaurant and hotel.
The outgoing mayor also mentioned that his wife has 72 tolas of gold ornaments and he had a building inherited from his father, received electronics, furniture and other valuable items as gifts.
When asked about the rise, Hiron, who is also a legal practitioner of Barisal Bar Association, said that his income was legal and that they came from the expansion of his business activities.
Former secretary of Nagorik Parishad and the district unit of Fair Election Monitoring Alliance, Enayet Hossain Chowdhury, claimed that the financial statements submitted to the Election Commission, nearly always only show wealth and assets that can be legally accounted for and the remaining, those achieved through unfair means and mostly a couple of folds more than declared income, stays hidden.
Hiron was elected on August 4, 2008 after he beat BNP-backed contender, Sarfuddin Santu, topping his 46,208 votes by only 588.
This year he is being contested for the mayoral post by three candidates – all from BNP--Advocate Kamrul Ahsan Shahin, city BNP secretary and former public prosecutor, Ahsan Habib Kamal, district (south) BNP president and former BCC Mayor, Ebaidul Huq Chan, former district BNP secretary and president of Barisal Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Cental BNP organising secretary and city unit chief, Mojibur Rahman Sarwar, said that they would be pitting their candidate under the banner of Jatiyatabadi Nagorik Parishad and will nominate single candidate from the trio before May 26, the last date of withdrawal from the polls.
Kamal in 2008 got only 26,416 votes. His declared annual income at the time was Tk708,000 which hiked by a little to Tk930,000 this year. His assets are now worth Tk15m, close to what it was in 2008.
Ebaidul Huq Chan, former district BNP secretary and then BCCI president received 19,626 votes against Hiron and had an annual income of Tk290,000 and properties worth TK. 3.61m. His income has fallen by Tk70,000 over the last five years while after revaluation, his assets were worth Tk9.44m.
