Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) Secretary Wing Commander Muhammad Younas (Retd) has said that the voters lists of the chamber have been prepared in an impartial and transparent manner, while the memberships of LCCI were made in line with the decisions of the executive committee and the constitution.
Commenting on appeal of a group in LCCI, published in a section of press, Younas said that he wanted to make it clear to the members that there was no violation of rules and regulations in membership procedure.
About those 385 Associate class members who were not present in the voters list, he said that their memberships were deferred by the executive committee in its meeting held on September 19, 2003.
This decision was approved by the committee in its meeting held on October 10, 2003. Since these members had not completed term of one year as LCCI member, their names could not be included in the voter's list, as per law, he said.
He said that as many as 171 trade group members had been expelled from voter's list as majority of those either had wind up their business or departed from the world.
Their record was also got verified from the income tax department and they were served with notices to bring actual record to the chamber, but they did not turn up.
Presidents of their group and DTO were also approached through letters. Executive committee gave membership to another 48 persons after thorough checking. Upon it, a group also approached the court but it declared this procedure valid, he claimed.
Secretary LCCI talking about up-gradation of 101 members to Chamber class said that they had applied for up-gradation, under article 5 of the Memorandum of Article of the LCCI, between July 01 to September 30.
Upon completion of all the rules and regulations they were declared eligible as member LCCI Chamber class.
He said that all the decisions were taken within the ambit of Memorandum of Article, while LCCI was also an ISO certified institution so there was no question of committing any irregularity. He appealed to the LCCI members to keep up golden traditions of the chamber in its forthcoming elections.