Nazrul Islam Mazumder, 27 others barred from FBCCI polls

Nazrul Islam Mazumder, chairman of Bangladesh Association of Banks and chairman of NASSA Group, along with 27 others could not qualify as a nominated director of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) as the certificate of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) showed that he is a tax defaulter.

The election board for 2023-25 of the FBCCI scrutinised the tax, bank and police clearance certificates on Monday and found that Mazumder is not qualified to be a nominated director of the FBCCI because of being a tax defaulter.

Other top businessmen who were also disqualified as contesting nominated/elected directors for being either loan or tax defaulters are: Md Shafiqul Islam Vorosha, Syed Sadat Almas Kabir, Mohammsd Khorshed Alam, Mohammed Monsur, Shahab Uddin Khan, Khandaker Ruhul Amin, Nizamuddin Rajesh, Md Abul Hashem, Serajul Islam, Md Rakibul Alam, Salma Hossian Ash, Md Jakir Hossain and Taher Ahmed Siddiqui.

Despite repeated attempts, Mazumder could not be reached over mobile phone by this correspondent.

The election board published the lists of the qualified and disqualified director candidates on the FBCCI website Tuesday.

In the lists, it was found that the candidature of 34 directors were suspended mainly because of two reasons, including tax and bank loan defaults.

No candidature was suspended or cancelled because of failure in police clearance.

Fazlee Shamim Ehsan could not qualify as director candidate as his signature did not match with his specimen signature, Mousumi Islam's candidature was suspended as her voter number was penned through whereas Mohammad Anwar Hossain could not qualify as his proposer's name was penned through.

Md Abul Hossain, Mohammed Abul Basher, Khondakar Enayet Ullah, KM Akhtaruzzaman and Habib Ullah Dawn could not be qualified as nominated directors under the association group because of tax or loan defaulters.

Md Ali Hossain (Shishir), Md Shah Jalal, Mohammed Riyadh Ali, Mohammad Fayazur Rahman Bhuiyan and Mohabbat Ullah could not qualify for contesting in the election under the chamber group due to either loan default or tax default or for both.

Samiul Haque Safa, Mohammad Nizam Uddin and Sujib Ranjan Dash could not qualify as the nominated directors under the chamber group either for tax or loan default or for both.

The FBCCI election board also published the list of both contesting and nominated 105 qualified directors.

A Matin Chowdhury, chairman of the election board, said the suspended candidates can appeal to the appeal board, and if the board qualifies them the election board will publish the final lists of qualified candidates on July 19 as per the schedule of the election.

Preparations are underway by the election board which would hold an election in Dhaka on July 31 to form the top management of the FBCCI for the 2023-25 term.

As per the FBCCI charter, 46 directors (23 from association group and 23 from chamber group) will be elected and join the team of nominated 34 directors (17 from chamber and 17 from association group).

These 80 directors will then elect one president, one senior vice-president and six vice-presidents.

There are 2,500 voters this year, said the chairman of the election board.