KARACHI - Election campaign for upcoming Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s elections, which are scheduled to be held on December 29, 2014, is in full swing.
Both contesting groups are claiming to be in a comfortable position and are hoping for landslide victories. As usual, there are two major groups that are contesting the elections; one is Businessmen Panel led by Tariq Saeed and the other, led by SM Munir & Iftikhar Malik, is United Business Group.
Commenting over the allegations of the United Business Group, Haji Shafique-ur-Rehamn, member executive committee of FPCCI and member Businessmen Panel, alleged that SM Munir enjoyed the presidentship of Pakistan-India Joint Chamber of Commerce from the last six years while his brother SM Naseer, vice president FPCCI, was using his office for election campaign.
It is also pertinent to mention here that Iftikhar Malik of United Business Group is heading the SARC Chamber of Commerce from last eight years. “So, how can they blame The Business Panel for bad practices,” he asked.  
“The leaders of United Group take different advantages and chose Gulzar Feroz and Khalid Tawab as vice presidents for their personal interest. The leaders of UBG also practice the favoritism by allotting the slots of standing committee(s) to outsiders,” he said.
He claimed that Businessmen Panel will win the seat of president, adding that it has strong position in all four provinces to easily win the seats of senior vice president including four vice presidents.
Haji Shafique-ur-Rehman claimed that three leaders from the opponent group have also join the Businessmen Panel that proves the success of our group.
Earlier, in a statement, spokesman of United Business Group Gulzar Firoz said S M Muneer is respected due to resolving the issues of businessmen from Karachi to Khyber and that is why the opponent group is doing politics of blame game.
He said that friends of S M Muneer were given the committee chairmanships and from these committees, budget committee had presented best budget while performance of exhibition committee was also praiseworthy.
He said that surgery of federation has been done and now corruption and looting would be eliminated.
He said that few so-called leaders of opponent group have crossed all moral limits, adding that United Business Group is participating in the upcoming election in democratic way but leaders of opponent group bent upng blame game.
He alleged that present leadership of FPCCI has made chairman exhibition committee, who has no experience for conducting exhibitions.