January 21, 2006	Saturday	Zilhaj 20, 1426

KARACHI, Jan 20: Business leaders are apparently taken by surprise and are seemingly unprepared at present to get involved in the exercise of change of law that governs formation, operations and all affairs of the chambers of commerce and industry and trade bodies.

Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan was more than blunt in his observations on Thursday at a Karachi function where he declared the chambers and trade bodies as “not representative bodies in which many businessmen are disinterested” and that he was ready to form a committee that should give a hard look at the Trade Organization Ordinance, 1961 to amend it or, if necessary, suggest a new law altogether.

“In a country where army ruled directly for 36 years out of 59 years of independence, the trade bodies have become weak like the political parties and political institutions,” a prominent but retired business leader explained.

“Lobbying for an issue and mobilization of support of the majority is relevant only to democratic societies,” he said while pointing out that connections, clout, influence and cronyism matter in countries where the military rules. In military dictatorships, power, authority and decision-making is confined to one or a small group of persons and not in the institutions and, therefore, connections and cronyism matter and not lobbying,” is another explanation for rendering democratically elected trade bodies irrelevant and weak. “How can Pakistan be an exception to this rule?” he asked. “How representative is the present government,” he remarked sarcastically while endorsing Humayun Akhtar Khan’s observations on the representative character and effectiveness of the trade bodies.

“Business leaders manipulate their way to top in the chambers and trade bodies the same way as politicians do in a military government,” a businessman politician said.

Tarqi Sayeed, godfather of business politics in Pakistan, had explained sometimes in the recent past that big business houses stayed away from the chambers because they had their own “right connections with the right people in corridors of power” and unlike the general business community did not depend on institutions like chambers and trade bodies to find solutions to their problems.

Probably it was realization of inherent weaknesses and ineffectiveness of the chambers that Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry President Chowdhry Mohammad Saeed in his first board meeting early 2005 announced to carry out a reform process in the apex trade body.

The managing committee of the FPCCI commissioned a private consultant who is said to have carried out a study of the relevant documents and reportedly held meetings with leaders of different groups and finalized a report.

But instead of circulating this report among the general body members, the FPCCI president submitted this report to the managing committee, as his opponents remarked that the idea was to “get it passed hurriedly without any debate”.

Another shortcut has been worked out because of the opposition and a 10-member committee has been formed to review this report and suggest any changes.

Mr Saeed is not clear whether he would be able to initiate a change in the structure and running of the apex trade body, but he said that he had set in motion a series of plans “to upgrade the FPCCI”.

The government has sanctioned Rs18.3m to the FPCCI to carry out research studies in 10 business areas and also to set up two foreign FPCCI offices one in Shanghai and the other in some Polish business city.

The government has decided to allow businesswomen to have their own chambers at the divisional levels and the FPCCI has approved in principle the setting up of these chambers in five cities — Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Multan and Islamabad.

He said the FPCCI infrastructure was being strengthened. The library is being given a new look and the conference rooms and auditoriums are being equipped with modern audio system and translation facilities.

Mr Saeed was non-committal when asked if the apex trade body has any role to promote practice of sound business principles, work out a code of conduct and a code of honour to curb malpractices being done in Pakistan by the cement cartel, auto assemblers, oil marketing companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. “Our members are institutions and individual businessmen or companies,” he answered.

He explained in details the membership procedure of the FPCCI in which besides the apex trade body, the Director Trade Organization (DTO), a joint secretary at the commerce ministry and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) were involved. The blame for bogus chambers and phoney trade bodies is, therefore, shared by the three — the FPCCI, the DTO and the SECP.

Majority of the businessmen, however, accuse the DTO of responsible for many ills that afflict chambers and trade bodies. A junior office at the commerce ministry is being given a big task, which offers good money like a policeman whose salary is just five or six thousands but carries an automatic rifle worth about Rs20,000 and makes money.