As we all know, elections to the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce took place a few months ago, and the Dammam Chamber of Commerce elections are scheduled to take place on March 11. Nearly 22 candidates have been nominated. Twelve of them represent the Cooperation Group, the only one running without facing significant competition.
The voters in such elections are members of the chambers of commerce — businessmen, traders, entrepreneurs and industrialists — who pay fees for their membership, for document attestation, and other contributions imposed on them.
What happens to all that money?
The officials use it for traveling, partying, eating out and boosting their salaries! Management completely ignores members who have been newly elected, meaning it is unsurprising that most of those who are being replaced by the newcomers managed to achieve almost nothing. Worse still, the policies of the chambers of commerce are not in parallel with the country’ policies. Can that help our economy in any way?
It is imperative that the Kingdom’s chambers of commerce coordinate their activities and expand their scope to take on opportunities abroad.
It is an absolute must that chambers of commerce adopt four-year plans, which have to be updated when required. Only in this way will they be able to evaluate how businesses are progressing and suggest ways they can improve.
In particular, the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce should take account of the numerous articles that have been written about its performance. In lieu of making use of constructive criticism, the chamber has ignored everything said about it, dismissing constructive criticism as an outright attack.
Members of the various chambers of commerce claim they do indeed implement plans. If so, they should be made available to individual members. Furthermore, the goals and objectives of member chambers, and an account of how well they have been achieved, must be published.
We therefore should refuse to accept any actions undertaken by any member of any chambers unless they have informed us of their objectives. One way of doing this would be to enter into a dialogue with the press. Unless this happens, they should expect only harsher criticism.
