APICTA suspends BASIS for not attending programme in Pakistan

The executive committee (EXCO) of the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) has suspended BASIS IT Association for two years for not complying with a directive to physically attend an award programme in Pakistan last year.

The ban will not apply to participants from Bangladesh in the upcoming APICTA programmes, according to a press statement issued by the alliance.

The suspension has been imposed for alleged lack of cooperation and non-compliance to an EXCO directive that required in-person attendance of participants at the APICTA Awards programme held on December 7 to 11 in Islamabad, Pakistan, said the press statement.

BASIS, however, described the ban as a ‘silly issue’ and denied the allegations saying the association had been clear about not wanting to attend the programme physically from the beginning.

Pakistan won the bid to host APICTA Awards in Islamabad on March 30, 2022 and the APICTA EXCO committee decided that the event will be held physically after holding it virtually for the previous two years amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

But BASIS wanted to attend last year’s programme virtually and when denied the opportunity, withdrew from it.

“Once judging schedules and other logistics were finalised, Bangladesh silently withdrew completely on the eve of the event, without giving any notice whatsoever. This caused chaos and disrupted the scheduling causing the host economy to reschedule the entire programme. This was against the harmony of APICTA,” said Fulvio Inserra, vice chairman of APICTA.

He said, “It is important to note that this suspension does not apply to participants from Bangladesh, whom we strongly felt were deprived of the opportunity in Islamabad. As such, they shall have the same opportunity to participate in the upcoming APICTA Awards 2023 and 2024.

However, APICTA requires that all entries must come through a representative body of the member economy. With BASIS, the incumbent member body representative of APICTA, suspended for the next two years, the alliance will now explore other options with the assistance of the ministry concerned to ensure active participation from Bangladeshi students, startups, IT companies and experienced category judges.

Meanwhile, BASIS President Russell T Ahmed said, “We have cleared that we would not attend the meeting in Pakistan physically from the beginning, rather virtually. China was allowed but not Bangladesh.

“APICTA alleged BASIS of barring companies from attending the meeting, which is utter falsehood; rather the teams which were supposed to attend unanimously rejected the visit to Pakistan.

“I think this suspension on the strong digital economy like Bangladesh is a silly issue and the failure of the visionary leadership. Their allegations of non-compliance are baseless and silly.

Russel believes the ban will not be a big issue for Bangladesh, as the country does not have many IT giants like India and Japan.

However, he said BASIS does not want to disrespect APICTA and will write to the organisation about the suspension.

The BASIS president said, “We have promoted APICTA in many ways, and hosted the biggest programme in 2017.

“We do not want to disrespect APICTA. BASIS is focusing on the upcoming grand event Soft-expo-2022. I will write to APICTA later about the suspension.”