Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) has announced to increase its membership renewal fees by 465 percent. Now all REAP members are required to pay an amount of Rs 14,000 as renewal fee instead of Rs 3000 being charged previously. The fee, though, has been increased after three years; small rice exporters have expressed serious concerns over exorbitant increase and written a latter to DG, Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), Usman Narejo to look into the matter.
The letter, a copy of which is available with Business Recorder, stated that "kindly recommend to the Ministry of Commerce to remove the mandatory membership of REAP and facilitate the rice exporters to export rice with the membership of the respective CC&I which should suffice." "The recent decision of some 465 percent increase in REAP membership renewal is unreasonable and should be revised", small exporters said.
According to small exporters, they have also written a letter to REAP officials regarding this issue, but unfortunately association has not responded. While criticising the decisions of Reap's Managing Committee (MC) they said it has taken arbitrary decision and not followed the procedure. They said that majority of the MC members belong to the big sector, who are unaware of the difficulties of traders of small sector, the increase in fees can be affordable for big exporters but not for all.
Replying a query they said, it is true that since many years Reap was incurring huge expenditure out of the pre-shipment inspection fees from the Quality Review Committee (QRC), and now since the fee goes to TDAP it is falling short of funds. We are exporting other items besides rice like maize, salt, and recipe items and we are members of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCC&I) and their renewal fees is Rs 2,100 only, then why the membership of REAP is mandatory, they said.
There is an order of the Sindh High Court (SHC) which says that REAP shall not compel any rice exporter to become its member, they claimed. The courts order is not relating to a particular suit because law is clear and loud enough for all. The concerned policy makers should comprehend that no one can compel an exporter to become member of a trade association when he/she is already a member of the Chamber of Commerce & Industry, they added.
On the other hand Jawed Ghori former chairman REAP said, "The new fee structure has been formally approved by the REAP managing committee as well as by the Director of Trade Organisation (DTO) to generate income to meet association's expanses" He said that since 2010 REAP membership renewal fee was not increased, however, now the rising expenses have forced the managing committee to revise the renewal fee.
"Three months back REAP's managing committee approved some increase in renewal fee and the decision was accordingly forwarded to DTO for appropriate approval", he informed. No body can challenge this as it's a legal act with approval of competent authority, he added.
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