KARACHI: A row of packed and tightly fastened wheel carts against the backdrop of closed shutters on roads that seemed broader than usual due to the lack of traffic on them. This was the usual sight at all the major markets of Karachi when traders went on strike to protest the 0.3 per cent withholding tax imposed on them by the government on Wednesday.

And the situation was troublesome for the public. “I came here all the way from Nazimabad to buy a new mobile phone. At first I was glad that there was less traffic on the roads but then I realised that this was because the entire mobile phone market on and around Abdullah Haroon Road was closed with the other shops,” said Abdul Razzaq Qamar. “Now I will have to come all the way again tomorrow,” he said disappointedly.

“We are small traders, we make so little as it is and because we do business here on the pavements, we also have to pay the police and other officials to allow us to remain here. Now we are also expected to pay this withholding tax? Maybe our small protest wouldn’t bother the government but it will bother the people,” said Mohammad Nadeem, a mobile phones dealer.

Abdul Qadir Soomro had come all the way from Thatta to the furniture market at Aram Bagh. “I came here to pick up a bedroom set we had ordered for my son’s wedding, which is day after tomorrow. I even brought a pick-up with me for carrying the furniture. How was I supposed to know that there was a traders’ strike going on here?” he said.

A furniture shop owner in the same market chilling on a footpath said that the small traders were fighting for a cause. So one day’s closure was a small price to pay. “My shop may be closed but I am still paying my workers and labourers in my workshop and warehouse while withstanding this loss of not opening the business. But it is fine as long as some good can out of it,” he said.

Saeeda Faqeer Mohammad said that her daughter was in hospital with a kidney infection and had been asking for something to eat from outside as she was feeling slightly better and was sick of hospital food. “I tried to get her some snack from outside but there was nothing there. Forget her, there was nothing for me to eat, too. Now I am going all the way back home to cook something for myself and pack a meal to take back to her at the hospital. I wish at least the food vendors were open,” she said.

Though some shops opened after 4.30pm, many didn’t. “What’s the use of opening the shops now? The time for business is past,” said a chemicals shop owner playing rummy with a few other traders at the corner of a road in Jodia Bazaar.

“We wouldn’t have had that much of an issue if with this withholding tax nonsense had our businesses also grown. But that hasn’t happened as yet. Today we small traders have united to convey to the government that the tax is unacceptable to us. If the nation unites this way, it will bring prosperity and we too may have no issue with paying high taxes but it is just not possible right now,” said a small shop owner at the Electronics Market near Regal Chowk in Saddar.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2015

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