The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association will form an election commission by Jan. 26, a member of the apex trade group’s support committee told Sourcing Journal, but it has nothing to do with the recent demands of 200 members to immediately jettison its administratorship in favor of less ad-hoc leadership that better represents their ranks.
“Absolutely not,” said Miran Ali, a former BGMEA vice president who is among the manufacturers advising Export Promotion Bureau vice chairman Md. Anwar Hossain following the dissolution of the organization’s board of directors in October over allegations of ballot stuffing and widespread chagrin over the organization’s lack of strategic direction. “We are following the reform agenda that the government has assigned us.”
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Voting is expected to take place within the next four months, in line with Hossain’s pledge to hold “free and fair” elections within 120 days of his appointment. It’s expected that BGMEA’s two rival factions—Sammilito Parishad and Forum—will be facing off once more, though the air might be chillier since it was members of Forum that accused the former group of making a clean sweep of last April’s elections through the use of fake votes.
The infighting comes at a time of major political upheaval for Bangladesh. Forum had also complained about the handing over of the trade group’s reins in the wake of SM Mannan Kochi’s resignation as president in August. Kochi, who also served as general secretary of the Dhaka City North arm of the Awami League, Bangladesh’s then-ruling party, had left the country after then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s downfall was accompanied by an escalation of mob violence against members of her government. While BGMEA vice president Khandoker Rafiqul Islam, who also served as acting president during Kochi’s absence, quickly moved up to the helm, it was a succession that some saw as irregular.
Members also cast doubt on whether the existing board could navigate Bangladesh’s tentpole industry—which is responsible for nearly 85 percent of the country’s exports—through the myriad financial, economic, production, labor and logistical crises that have bedeviled it since the student-led democratic movement challenged, then overthrew, the Awami League’s iron-fisted rule in July. Orders for what used to be the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China have collapsed as brands and retailers pursue stability in increasingly uncertain times.
But Hossain’s critics, who met in Chittagong last week, have bristled at what they said was the administrator’s “overstep” of the scope of his responsibilities by instituting reforms he wasn’t supposed to and by hiring external law firms when the BGMEA has in-house legal representation. They hit out, in particular, at a Dec. 30 notice that asked members to submit their renewal applications for BGMEA membership, along with updated trade and factory licenses and income tax certificates, by Jan. 31.
“Nowhere in the 2022 Trade Organization Act, the 1994 Trade Organization Rules and BGMEA’s own memorandum and articles of association is it stated that a DIFE certificate is required for membership renewal,” SM Nurul Haque, managing director of Shagore Garments and a former BGMEA first vice president, wrote in a letter to members, dated Jan. 2., that used the acronym for the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments. “In this case, giving time until Jan. 31 is not appropriate in any way. BGMEA members renew their membership at a time convenient to them throughout the year. For example, if a member obtains BGMEA membership in December, why would they renew their membership again by Jan. 31?”
Even so, Ali said it was the administrator and his support committee’s job to reform the member rolls and election procedures, ensuring that only “legitimate” manufacturers and exporters can exercise the right to vote and, in so doing, form a board that is beyond reproach as it aids in the sector’s recovery.
“This is the core issue: The administrator is trying to ensure we have an actual count of members and only those licensed by the government are counted as members,” he said. “Those who don’t have the licenses are now worried they’ll lose voting rights.”
