PESHAWAR: A new group under the banner of Sarhad Business Alliance (SBA) has been formed to challenge the over two-decade long hegemony of the Ilyas Ahmad Bilour led Businessman Forum (BF) in the politics of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI).
The new alliance has elected Haji Ghulam Ali, a former Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as its Patron-in-Chief and Syed Zahir Ali Shah, a former provincial minister-businessman as its chairman. The alliance has also formed a 15-member working group.
Other members of the alliance include former presidents of SCCI, Sharafat Ali Mubarak and Mohammad Ishaq as co-chairmen while a former caretaker minister for Industries and Commerce, Mohammad Adnan Jalil as secretary to the working group as well as finance secretary.
Mohammad Adnan Jalil also belongs to an influential family and has worked as Vice President of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) and president of Peshawar Chamber of Small Traders and Industries. Said Akbar Mohmand has been elected as secretary information of the alliance.
A four-member panel comprising of the two former presidents of SCCI, Dr Yousaf Sarwar and Mohammad Ishaq, Bakht Mir Jan and Luqman Shah has been tasked to draft a manifesto for the alliance. Similarly, Sirajuddin, Bakht Mir Jan and Abidullah Khan Yousafzai have been nominated as members of the public relation committee.
The leadership of the alliance has decided to play active role in the annual elections of the Sarhad Chamber and contact every member on the voters’ list in effective manner to seek their support to revive what they called the dwindling prestige of the apex trade body of the province.
The alliance is also aimed at playing full role in addressing the sense of deprivation in business community.
The alliance has adopted the slogan of the ‘Chamber for All’ to take their campaign forward and expressed resolve to form a realistic executive committee/cabinet for the chamber.
The alliance has launched its pre-campaign consultative meetings with the renowned businessmen of the province and in this connection it had held meetings with Ghulam Sarwar Khan Mohmand, a former two-term president of the chamber and petroleum dealers association, who had announced full support for the alliance in the forthcoming annual elections of the trade body.
On the other hand, the ruling Businessman Forum has also accepted the challenge and has started preparations for the coming elections. In past several such attempts were made to dislodge the group from the chamber, but all such efforts had proved futile. Several former active supporters of the Businessman Forum are not only supporting the new alliance rather in the forefront of such endeavor. However, the alliance will be required to cross several barriers including the tough scrutiny of the nomination papers by the election committee comprising of the supporters of the Businessman Forum.
The recent past incidents of the resignation of then SCCI President Mohammad Ishaq and Visa Scam has created some dents in the ranks of the ruling group.
The dislodging of the hegemony of the Businessman Forum from the Sarhad Chamber is longstanding dream of the rivals of the group. But, all such attempts in past had miserably failed as the ruling group has experienced in combating such attacks.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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