KARACHI: Chairman Businessmen Group (BMG) and Former President Karachi Chamber Siraj Kassam Teli has advised the newly elected Office Bearers of KCCI to focus on convincing the government to revalidate Trade Organizations Ordinance (TOO) 2007 and implement the same in letter and spirit as this was the only Ordinance which had been endorsed by the entire Business and Industrial community of the country.
Speaking at the 57th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Chairman BMG stated that in order to unshackle FPCCI from the clutches of Qabza Group and send these unscrupulous elements back to their homes, it was indispensable to abolish the existing TOO-2013 and revalidate TOO-2007 otherwise the genuine representatives of the business and industrial community would remain deprived and continue to protest against FPCCI.
Vice Chairmen BMG & Former Presidents KCCI Tahir Khaliq, Zubair Motiwala, Haroon Farooki and Anjum Nisar, Newly elected Office Bearers Junaid Esmail Makda (President), Khurram Shehzad (Senior Vice President) and Asif Sheikh Javaid (Vice President) along with retiring Office Bearers Muffasar Atta Malik (Ex-President), Abdul Basit Abdul Razzak (Ex-SVP), Rehan Hanif (Ex-VP), Former Presidents KCCI AQ Khalil, Haroon Bari, Shamim Ahmed Firpo, KCCI Managing Committee members and a large number of General Body Members attended the AGM.
Siraj Teli advised the newly elected Office Bearers to compile a detailed narration about TOO and submit it to Advisor to Prime Minister Abdul Razzak Dawood with a request to immediately abolish TOO-2013 and revalidate TOO-2007 in order to completely wipeout all wrongdoings done in between 2007 and 2013. “If necessary, any minor changes in TOO-2007 should only be made after consultation with the entire business and industrial community of the country as it was endorsed by them”, he added, and was fairly optimistic that Razzak Dawood would better understand the loopholes in TOO-2013 and take steps to deal with this issue.
He said, “We struggled really hard to get Trade Organizations Ordinance 1961 abolished during Musharraf’s regime in 2007 when Humayun Akhtar Khan was the Commerce Minister. At that point in time, TOO-2007 was formulated which was endorsed by all Trade Associations, Chambers and even the FPCCI that resulted in eradicating almost all the fake/ bogus trade bodies whereas around 90 trade associations and 35 Chambers of Commerce were found legal when TOO-2007 was implemented.”
However, TOO-2007 was sabotaged in between 2007 to 2013 and it was abolished and replaced with TOO-2013 which once again provided bogus trade bodies an opportunity to get registered by paying a mere amount of three to four hundreds thousand only. To deal with this serious issue, KCCI approached the then Commerce Minister Amin Fahim and Chairman of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Commerce Khurram Dastgir Khan, who later on became the Commerce Minister during PML-N’s era. Although assurances were given from time to time but not a single step was taken by anyone to deal with this issue therefore, the newly elected Office Bearers must take up this issue”, he added.
