The employees working in the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) headquarters in Karachi are facing tremendous pressure since Secretary General Dr Khalid Amin, was appointed by the immediate past president Riaz Ahmed Tata. Six of the FPCCI's senior-most management cadre employees, who were putting day and night efforts in managing the affairs of FPCCI resigned in protest.
Insiders are of the opinion that a list of 17 employees out of a total strength of 55 has been prepared and indecent language s being used with the employees who are tendering resignations one after another. The attitude of management with the employees is due to the power struggle that is going on between two groups headed by Tariq Saeed and Ilyas Ahmed Bilour, both former presidents of FPCCI, who are playing key roles in the business politics of FPCCI. Both of them are "king makers", This time the turn was of Azad Kashmir, and therefore, both the Kashmiri Sardar M. Ashraf Khan of Muzaffarabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Chaudhry Muhammad Saeed of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry were in the run for the top slot position.
Sardar M. Ashraf Khan was the nominee of Ilyas Ahmed Bilour's group, whereas, Chaudhry M. Saeed was the nominee of Tariq Saeed's group. Negotiations were held between the two chiefs and their groups before the elections were held last year, but they failed reach a consensus. Since Tariq Saeed was having an upper hand among the newly-elected 103 managing committee members, Chaudhry M. Saeed, got the top slot. Being the chief of FPCCI, now Chaudhry M. Saeed has a busy schedule and does not have enough time to see what is going on in the apex trade body of the country.
He had already been out on foreign trips after becoming the President of FPCCI with President of General Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's entourage, as the leader of the apex trade body. Most of the managing committee members are against the decisions that are taken from time to time in running the day-to-day affairs of FPCCI. The members of the managing committee of FPCCI and its senior office-bearers have failed to co-ordinate with the other chambers of commerce offices in the country, as they seem to be more busy in self-projection and getting their near and dear ones nominated in different standing committees of FPCCI.
Despite a lapse of seven months, the managing committee of FPCCI has failed to hold meetings of 112 FPCCI standing committees to make them functional, nor has the standing committee hyperlink of FPCCI's web site (http://www.fpcci.com.pk) been updated to make these standing committees public.
The need of the hour is to streamline the management of the FPCCI, so that the business community should be able to achieve the export target of $17 billion, which has been set by the government.