Although the quota regime passed into the pages of history with the dawn of 2005, Quota Supervisory Council (QSC) Chairman Abdul Aziz Memon appears keen to keep the QSC alive at least on the newspaper pages. Reacting to a report, published in the Business Recorder on March 11 explaining that with the elimination of textile quotas from January 2005, the functions of the QSC have come to an end, he asserted that the QSC tenure had been extended till July 2005.
In a letter written to this newspaper, he said the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) had extended the QSC tenure for two years, ie from July 7, 2003 to July 7, 2005.
In this connection, he quoted a letter written by the MoC on July 7, 2003, which said that the extension was in pursuance of para 19 of the Textile Management Policy Order 2001, and requested that a corrigendum to the story should be issued.
Memon also telephoned the concerned reporter and insisted that the QSC was intact and asked him to publish the corrigendum as he was in possession of the MoC's letter to that effect.
When he was asked to send the MoC's letter, he faxed the letter, which was written in July 2003. There has been no fresh communication between the QSC and the MoC on the subject as automatically and logically the QSC is now a story of the past.
What makes Memon so keen to retain a body, which has now no function to perform, is not understandable.
Where are the quotas and what he will supervise? Needless to mention that the official sources in the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) had confirmed that the QSC was now a redundant body.
The MoC's letter written in July 2003 granting extension to the QSC for two years must have been drafted by some Section Officer without realising that its supervision will no longer be required after January 1, 2005 and the Pakistani exporters need not live on lollipops.