The Ministry of Commerce has dissolved the current Executive Committee of the Cox's Bazar Chamber of Commerce and Industry and appointed a new administrator for the business organization.
Md. Rihan Uddin, the Director General (Current Charge) of the Trade Organization Wing of the ministry, issued the official order on Tuesday.
The order stated that the current committee of the licensed, registered trade organization has been unable to conduct its overall activities in coordination with its general members. Due to ongoing instability and dissatisfaction, the committee has failed to play an effective role, leading to a failure in properly managing the chamber's overall operations under the Trade Organization Act, 2022.
Consequently, the committee has been dissolved, and Imran Hossain Sajib, Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) of Cox's Bazar, has been appointed as the chamber's Administrator.
The DG's order instructs the new Administrator to hold a fair and neutral election within the next 120 days and hand over responsibilities to the newly elected committee.
This development follows a letter sent to the ministry on November 10 by Mohammad Sanaullah, who claimed to be the rightfully elected President of the chamber for the 2024-2026 term.
In the letter, Sanaullah alleged that in 2017, during the previous government, a group backed by the Awami League, led by Abu Morshed Chowdhury Khoka, illegally "captured" the chamber's committee through political influence.
He claimed that despite this, four members from his committee were included in the final voter list for the recent FBCCI election and were even appointed to various FBCCI standing committees. However, he alleged that the "illegal chamber president" Khoka later used political influence to remove their names from the FBCCI committees.
Sanaullah stated that they had complained to the Ministry and the FBCCI at the time but found no redress due to the influence of "opportunistic circles" of the past government.
