LAHORE, Oct 24: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) said on Friday it had not received any formal request for termination of membership from individual member companies of the Kohinoor and Nishat Groups.

It may be mentioned that both the groups have sent the letters to Aptma secretariat withdrawing membership of their companies.

Talking to Dawn, an Aptma spokesman said: “We cannot terminate membership of member companies belonging to the two groups unless we receive individual requests from them in this regard.” He said the letters received from the two groups had themselves mentioned that their companies would send individual requests shortly. “But we have not received any so far,” he added.

Both Mian Mansha and Mian Tariq Saigol are said to be “unhappy and angry” with the ruling group for what they term as “misusing” their positions in the association to ensure the victory of Waqar Monnoo as chairman of the association in election held on October 11.

The sources close to the two businessmen say both were unhappy over the way the ruling group had allowed several members to cast their votes by paying their membership dues in instalments. “This single step has helped Waqar Monnoo obtain a number of votes from Punjab to win the election and defeat Shahid Anwaar Tata”.

Moreover, it is stated, Mian Mansha and Mian Tariq Saigol were also opposed to the existing rule of “one company one vote”. They want that voting rights should be commensurate with the number of spindles a group or a company owns.

Their claim that their groups had consolidated their companies by adding more and more spindles to them instead of “establishing new units”. On the other hand, however, some groups have added to the number of their existing units which allowed them to increase their voting rights in Aptma. It was pointed out that a prominent group in Punjab had close to 17 votes in Aptma on the strength of number of units it owns although it had “only a few thousand more spindles than the two companies of Mian Tariq Saigol”.

A former Aptma chairman, who wished not to be named, told Dawn that the rule of “one company one vote” was drafted when Mian Tariq Saigol himself was the chairman of Aptma.

“A proposal to change this rule was mooted a few years back at the Aptma AGM but was rejected by the members,” he said. He added if anyone wanted to change the rule, he should bring the proposal to the AGM for discussion, and convince members that the existing rule wasn’t in the interest of the association or its membership.

Another Aptma member, who wished anonymity, said “the decision of two major textile groups to quit Aptma would have an unhealthy impact on the association”. “Both are big names (in the country) and their leaving Aptma would affect its effectiveness.”

But, a source close to the Aptma chairman, said this “decision would not affect Aptma much”. “Individuals come and go. No one is indispensable.”