5 members of E-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) announced their resignation together on Thursday after 10 days of the resignation of the Executive Committee of Bangladesh Computer Samity-BCS. At 1.20 AM, the Vice President of the organization Ambereen Reza shared this information in the WhatsApp group of the members.
According to her message, she herself and Joint General Secretary Khandaker Tasfin Alam, Director of Government Affairs Mohammad Ilmul Haque Sajib, Director of Communication Affairs M. Saidur Rahman and Corporate Affairs Director Shahriar Hasan resigned from the EC of e-CAB.
e-CAB president Shomi Kaiser resigned on August 13 citing personal reasons in the face of protests by some members due to her controversial stance during the student-people uprising. Since then, Senior Vice President Sahab Uddin Shipon has been serving as the Acting President of the organization as Senior Vice President.
It is known from the resignation letter of Ilmul Haque Sajib written to the acting president that, since the Election Board resigned without any prior announcement; In this context, it is feared that polling will not be held on time. So, for maintaining the democratic system, he resigned from his post.
In this letter, he wrote that the election of the executive committee of e-CAB was supposed to be held on July 27, 2024. But due to the successful uprising of students in the country at that time, the election was not held. Later, to continue the democratic process, I proposed to complete the election quickly so that the activities of the industry and e-CAB are more dynamic. But the sad news is that the election board formed on the occasion of the election has suddenly resigned from their posts without any discussion with the current committee. As a result, the possibility of completing the election on time has become very slim. In this situation, I would like to send a message to the general members of the organization that I am not willing to serve more than the prescribed period. Therefore, in order to continue the democratic trend, I have decided to resign from the post of Executive Committee Director by this letter.
It is learned that e-CAB director Abdul Wahed Tamal, General Secretary Nasima Akhtar Nisha, Finance Editor Asif Ahnaf and Director Mohammad Arnab Mostafa have resigned from their positions in the organization. In other words, in this committee of 11 members, except the acting president, the remaining 10 members have submitted their resignation letters.
But most of them could not be reached by phone. It was not immediately clear when and how they resigned. Later it was revealed that 9 of them have given their resignation letters on WhatsApp. First, on Thursday in the morning, a founding member Abdul Wahed Tamal announced his resignation from the post of Director citing the reason of being unable to perform his duties from outside the country. Then Ambareen Reza informed the Acting President Sahab Uddin Shipon on group call by sending a resignation letter on WhatsApp at midnight. There were 4 other EC members on that call.
When asked about this, Shipon said that during the relief work from Feni to the flood-affected areas, around 12 o’clock in the night, resignation letters started coming one by one. However, it was not seen immediately as it was in the works. Later came to know about resignation in group call. Now to keep the existence of the organization in order, he will meet with the secretariat on Sunday and go to the Ministry of Commerce and decide what to do.
On July 27, the election of the e-CAB Executive Committee for the term 2024-26 was supposed to be held. But the polls were suspended as the then government announced a curfew amid the quota reform movement. There were 24 candidates for 11 director posts in the election. Meanwhile, those who resigned campaigned for the Agrogami panel. The rest were independent candidates. But after the anger of some e-CAB members including general candidates for e-CAB office due to political change in the country, serious objections were raised about the political ideology and activities of some members of the organization. In such a situation, the e-CAB office is practically closed. The angry people demanded the resignation of several people.
In this way, time passes by as the country’s situation became fragile. In the meantime, some of the candidates close to the government emerged as revolutionaries in the change of political scenario. In such a situation last week, the three-member election board led by the Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce Md. Hafizur Rahman resigned. The other members of this board were – FBCCI former Director Md. Bakhtiar and BNNRC CEO AHM Bazlur Rahman.
It is learned that Vice President Ambareen Reza played the role behind the late-night resignation. She is the daughter of the late Syed Masood Reza, Member of Parliament elected from Barisal-6 Constituency on the nomination of Bangladesh Awami League in the 1996 Seventh National Parliament Elections and Barisal District Council Panel Chairman Irene Reza.
Some people have questioned the fact that the country was being restructured in the new era, and the resignation was practically divided into two parties late at night without forming a new election board. Because the term of this committee will end on September 15. In this situation, many are worried about the incident like breaking the EC, without considering the special situation, this kind of ‘WhatsApp resignation’ is a counter-revolution. Because, even though it is a commercial organization, when ordinary members expressed their anger at the political behavior of some of the ECs of the organization, they settled on the pretext of elections. After that they are also dressed as revolutionaries by writing their names in the reform queue. As a result, the e-CAB may go to the administrator instead of the elected members. Relief operations under the organization’s banner for flood victims may also be disrupted.
In such a situation, the names of other two organizations known in the country’s information technology sector, ISPAB and BASIS, have come up for discussion. Allegations of political affiliation and patronage against the 4 EC members of the current committee including the ISPAB president. General members also protested about this. In such a situation, after analyzing the political behavior of the commercial organization, the sector concerned demands organizational and structural reforms in this case.
