KARACHI: Small traders of the city on Monday blasted the Sindh government for “doing nothing” for them during the lockdown period and asked the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan to play its role and raise voice for reopening of their businesses.

A delegation of small traders visited the temporary headquarters of the MQM-P in Bahadurabad and held a meeting with its central leadership, including convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and senior leaders Amir Khan and Kanwar Naveed Jameel.

The traders were perturbed by the Sindh government’s directive under which they were not allowed to open full shutters of their shops, sit inside and to deal with customers.

The traders said that small businesses were badly hit by the ongoing lockdown and despite promises Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had done “nothing” for them.

Chief of the All Karachi Traders’ Alliance Atiq Mir said that city traders were sitting outside their shuttered shops in markets. “The government had just shut the businesses without taking into account our problems,” he said.

JI to hold protest demonstration in support of the trading community today

Another traders’ leader said that the Sindh government did nothing for the community and asked the MQM-P to approach the federal government to redress their grievances as they paid federal taxes.

However, Mr Mir said that traders did not want to violate the law by pulling up their shutters. He said the government should allow reopening of businesses under standard operating procedures.

MQM-P convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told the traders that past experience had suggested that the Sindh government would not do anything for traders.

He said the Sindh government had allowed businesses of their choice to reopen and it must allow small traders to resume their businesses.

Dr Siddiqui asked the delegation to provide the MQM-P their SOPs so that it could present the same before the prime minister and other quarters concerned for action.

He said the MQM-P supported all the demands of traders and the federal and provincial governments should accept all their demands forthwith.

He said that if imposing a lockdown was the responsibility of the Sindh government then it was its responsibility too to help the city’s traders.

The MQM-P leader said that Karachi paid 70 per cent of the national taxes and the sales tax collected from the metropolis was 80pc more than what was collected from five big cities of the country.

He said the Sindh government had “paralysed” the medical fraternity of the city by selecting a few hospitals to deal with coronavirus cases while other doctors were sitting idle at their homes.

He said the Sindh government had distributed rations in a manner that no one knew where it had spent billions of rupees.

Dr Siddiqui also demanded that the electricity tariff of Karachi be revised forthwith keeping in view a major cut in prices of petroleum products. “We will not accept the misdeeds of K-Electric.”

He also asked the Karachi police to behave gently with citizens.

JI protest plan

The Jamaat-i-Islami on Monday announced its support for traders demanding reopening of their businesses and called for a protest demonstration on Tuesday [today] to demand that the Sindh government allow them to open their businesses.

Speaking at a press conference at the party’s city headquarters Idara Noor-i-Haq, JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rahman with business leaders asked the Sindh government to devise SOPs as it had done for various other segments of society.

“The Sindh government should allow them to resume economic activity under mandatory SOPs,” he said. “The government has not yet taken any solid steps in this direction while traders and daily wage workers have become helpless in getting any positive answer. Traders are ready to open their respective businesses in different intervals keeping the SOPs in view.”

In this way, he said, the economic difficulties of traders and employees would lessen. He said the JI conducted a Karachi survey on the present situation through a renowned organisation in which it was found that 75pc to 80pc respondents were of the view that a large number of employed population had lost their jobs while they were not aware what would happen after three or four months.

“Economic activity in Sindh is still under lockdown and traders and government’s deadlock on opening economic activity remains unresolved that has multiplied economic miseries of the traders,” he said and criticised the Sindh health department for not providing health safety kits to doctors and paramedics serving coronavirus patients.

He advised the doctors also to highlight every situation in black and white and never to become “partners or spokespersons” of the government. The JI leader expressed solidarity with the traders.

Earlier in a meeting with the traders, the two sides decided that a traders’ convention would be convened at Idara Noor-i-Haq on May 7 to discuss a plan of action.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2020