TDS Desk:

A group of businessmen Monday (18 August) staged a demonstration in front of Chattogram Chamber of Commerce & Industry (CCCI) office in city’s Agrabad area demanding resignation of its current managing committee.

The businessmen who suffered discrimination also demanded a simplified process for obtaining new memberships in the century-old trade organisation, freed from autocracy and patriarchy.

Demanding reform of CCCI, Rakibul Alam, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told the journalists that a syndicate has transformed the CCCI into a “family-run institution”.

The speakers demanded the current board of directors of the chamber should resign and its membership should be simplified.

They said those who are businessmen of Chattogram will be members of the CCCI and elect the leadership.

Habibur Rahman, secretary of the Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicles Importers and Dealers Association (BARVIDA), said a new management committee should be formed through elections to make the chamber business-friendly without authoritarianism and nepotism.

Former CCCI senior vice president S M Nurul Haque alleged that the current committee was elected through irregularities so they want a free and fair election of the CCCI by its genuine members.

Former employees of the CCCI joined the rally with banners, demanding reinstatement to their jobs.

BGMEA Vice President Rakibul Alam, former CCCI leader Zahirul Islam Chowdhury Alamgir, former secretary general of BARVIDA Habibur Rahman, former senior vice president of the CCCI SM Nurul Haque, CCCI leaders Abdul Mannan Rana and Mahbub Rana among others addressed the function.