FPCCI official urges PM to appoint CEO TDAP purely on merit basis

F.P. Report

LAHORE: Executive Committee Member Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) and former Vice President, Mirza Abdul Rehman has urged the Prime Minister Imran Khan to appoint Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) purely on merit basis, as Ministry commerce advertise the post for TDAP Chief Executive few months back and committee compromised under Advisor for Commerce and Textiles.

As many as eighty people appeared before the Executive Committee for the interview and accordingly around eight persons were shortlisted for the post of CEO TDAP.

Mirza Abdul Rehman said that appointment for TDAP is under-process and very soon Government likely to be appoint Chief Executive TDAP from private sector once again. As previously it has been observed that every government mostly selected their well wisher irrespective of their capacity and capabilities to hold and run such an important post. It has been seen that these selected appointments in past only declined the exports rather than increasing it. The key description for this job is to increase the export but unfortunately previously appointees only decline the export.

After change of government these so called well wishers changes their affiliations and become well wisher of newly elected government. And when they are questioned about decline of exports in their tenure, they simply start blaming previous government. Like in case, as previous Chairman, who is now covering up their faults by simply saying that during his tenure, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif never given them time for meeting.

This is the most common and simple answer to cover up their fault by blaming previous government and become well wisher of current government so that they can get some benefits again.

It doesn’t matter if the then Chief Executive of TDAP were not getting salary, however the prime and the most important task for these appointments are to increase export by facilitating local businessmen with their policies and vision.

Unfortunately, previously it has been seen that such appointments didn’t work for betterment of exporters and in response our national export declined drastically at the level of $ 19 billion in the period of 2014 to 2017.

The FPCCI Official also said now government is going to appoint new Chairman of TDAP, I urged under the vision of Naya Pakistan, Prime Minister May approve and appoint competent person for such an important post who know the skills of trade diplomacy, trade development and run this office on non political basis. That person must be expert in export oriented businesses and he should have strong vision and policies. He must be a good exporter and largest tax payer if government may choose from private sector, because if he is doing export with remarkable figures then he can put the TDAP in right direction, which will eventually facilitate exporter of Pakistan and in return our country export will increase.

It may be recall here the previous government was appointed TDAP Chief executive in the year of 2014 who was dual national and even former PM set aside the criteria of appointment which was lay down in the advertisement by the Ministry of Commerce and in result country exports were down upto $ 6 billion in his three years tenure as CE TDAP.