FPCCI office-bearers: NA panel supports tenure extension from next elections

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce Thursday unanimously supported enhancement of tenure of FPCCI office-bearers from one year to two years from next elections.

Presided over by Syed Naveed Qamar, the Committee took up only two agenda items due to two reasons. First, most of the Committee Members did not attend the meeting due to change in time of meeting from 2 pm to 10 am and secondly, due to other engagements of Secretary Commerce.

The committee was informed that Section 11 of Trade Organizations Act, 2013 stipulates that tenure of office bearers of all trade organizations shall be for one year and proposal to change the tenure of office bearers needs to amend the relevant section of the Act so that the tenure of office bearers is increased to 2 years.

The setup of FPCCI (as specified in Rule 20 of Trade Organizations Rules, 2013) is different from other trade organizations registered with DGTO.

The tenure of executive committee of FPCCI is one year as per Rule 20(10) of Trade Organizations Rules, 2013, whereas the tenure of executive committees of other trade organizations is two years as per Rule 21(14) of Trade Organizations Rules, 2013.

Currently, the President of FPCCI is rotated on a yearly basis among different regions of Pakistan as per schedule D of Trade Organizations Rules, 2013, which is as follows: (i) Sindh; (ii) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; (iii) Balochistan; (iv) Punjab; (v) Sindh; and (v) Federal Areas.

As per this rotation, Federal Areas, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have to wait a period of 7 years each, before being able to be elected as President of FPCCI.

A similar Bill was introduced in 2016 & 2019 on which following concerns were raised against the proposal of increasing the tenure of office bearers of trade organizations from 1 year to 2 years and 3 years. Former President FPCCI Engineer Daroo Khan had made hectic efforts to enhance the tenure of office bearers of FPCCI but the then Committee Chairman, Shibli Faraz and few other Committee Members did not support the Bill.

Commerce Ministry informed the Committee that firstly, a change in the tenure of office bearers would imply that Balochistan, Federal Area KPK would be able to elect a President to FPCCI after 14 years, and Punjab and Sindh would be able to elect President to FPCCI after 7 years (if tenure is increased to 2 years).

Furthermore, in TO’s other than FPCCI, a member of the Executive Committee would not be able to complete his/her tenure as an office bearer if he/she is elected as such in the second year of their tenure which implies that current proposal also includes fundamental changes to many different and interlinked aspects of the Trade Organizations Act, 2013 and Trade Organization Rules, 2013 to avoid any legal contradictions or practical inefficiencies.

The present state of affairs is that President of FPCCI is elected after a period of seven years from Balochistan or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or Federal Area. In case the tenure of office bearers is increased to 3 years, the representatives of different regions shall have to wait for 21 years before they can be elected as President of FPCCI.

The proposals to increase representation from the provinces on parity basis (like representation of provinces in the Senate of Pakistan) were also discussed but could not be realized.

However an increase in tenure of office bearers to two years would improve policy continuity within TO’s, and allow Office Bearers sufficient time to initiate and complete projects for the welfare of Trade in Pakistan. And the proposal under consideration would not affect the proportion of representation of each Region of Pakistan in FPCCI office bearers.

During discussion, President FPCCI, Mian Nasser Hayat Maggo informed the Committee that the tenure of FPCCI office bearers was two years up till 2011 after which the tenure was reduced to one year through an Ordinance. He said, most of the duration of the tenure is exhausted during Elections and Ramazan.

Secretary Commerce, Sualeh Ahmad Farooqui maintained that progress cannot be seen in any organization in one year’s time.

Chairman Standing Committee supported the proposal and suggested that a clause should be inserted that the applicability of the decision will be effective from the tenure of next office bearers. He also directed Commerce Ministry to complete constitutional and legal process in two months’ time.

Secretary Commerce assured the Committee that process to amend the constitution will be started soon after the presentation of federal budget 2021-22.

TCP employees’ issue: TCP Chairman Riaz Memon revealed in the Standing Committee that out of 409 employees of TCP only 9 employees were recruited through advertisement.

He further stated that those employees who were recruited in 2011 do not fulfill the prescribed criteria.

Standing Committee Chairman Naveed Qamar who was also a Member of Cabinet in 2011 said that the decision of recruitment was taken by the then Cabinet which was empowered to do so.

Commenting on increase in salaries of employees, Chairman TCP said that it is the prerogative of Finance Division to approve increase in salaries and a representative of Finance Division is a member of the Committee.

He maintained that salaries of TCP employees are already on higher side and Human Resource Department has raised objections. The salaries of TCP employees are 80 to 100 per cent higher vis-à-vis salaries of other employees. TCP also extends two bonuses equivalent to one-month gross salary in a fiscal year.

He further stated that salaries of TCP employees were increased in 2015-16 and 2016-17 but not the salaries of officers. The salaries of officers of BPS 17 and above are equal to other government organizations.

The meeting was attended by Ahmed Hussain Dehar, Sajida Begum, Usman Ibrahim, Ms Tahira Aurangzeb, Shaista Pervaiz Malik and Syed Javed Ali Shah.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021