None of the three executives of All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) appeared before the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Friday. Instead, two of them were represented by their lawyers, in response to the show-cause notices issued by the Commission on May 19, 2008, sources in CCP said.
The CCP had held hearing on June 5, 2008 as opportunity was provided to the cement sector executives to appear and give reasons why they had obstructed and harassed the CCP inspection team and prevented it from conducting a lawful search of the APCMA office. This was in response to the show-cause notices No 51, 52 and 53 issued by the Commission.
Earlier, the CCP had gathered vital information that cement manufacturers' association, in an organised manner, was fixing the prices of the commodity. The owners of the companies sit together and the APCMA Chairman, with their consent, increases the prices.
The Competition Commission of Pakistan had issued notices to Shazad Ahmed, Secretary, All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) in Lahore, and two other persons "to show cause why penalty as provided under sub Section (2) of Section 38 may not be imposed upon them", for inter alia knowingly abusing, interfering with, and obstructing the process of the Commission.
Shazad, with the help of Ahmed Bilal, General Manager, Marketing, Kohat Cement Company, and another executive who introduced himself as Ahmed Zia, Area Sales Manager of Kohat Cement, absconded with an essential file on a motorbike. He had blocked access and interfered with the duly authorised inspection by CCP team to be carried out in terms of Section 34 of the Competition Ordinance 2007 at APCMA's office.
In the show-cause notice it was stated that apart from non-compliance of the order passed by the Commission, the officers of CCP were harassed and stopped from performing their lawful work.
Sub-section 2 of section 38 of the Competition Ordinance, 2007 empowers the Competition Commission to impose a penalty up to Rs one million in case of non-compliance with any order of the Commission and a similar penalty can be imposed for knowingly abusing, interfering, impeding or obstructing of the process of the Commission in any manner.
The hearing was conducted by CCP Chairman Khalid A Mirza, Abdul Ghaffar (Member) and Maleeha Bangash (Member). The Chairman expressed displeasure that the lawyers were not prepared and had no clue about the facts of the case. Under the circumstances and upon request made by the counsel, the Commission adjourned the matter.
The CCP officers who had gone to APCMA office at Lahore on April 24, 2008 to conduct search of the premises, as provided under Section 34 of the Ordinance, were Javed Qaiser, lkram ul Haq, Mubashar Hussain, and Shaista Bano.
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