RAWALPINDI: Cantonment traders have refused to pay fees for installing sign boards on the premises of shops and offices and threatened Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) that they will stage a protest if it continued ‘harassing’ shopkeepers in this regard.

RCBissued notices to shopkeepers to pay Rs18 perfeet for name boards installed on top of their shops and in this regard, the civic body gave a collection contract to a private contractor.

After getting notices, Cantonment Traders Association (CTA) President Sheikh Hafeez called a meeting wherein traders said that RCB did not have the authority to collect fees or taxes from them for putting up signboards on the premises of their shops.

The meeting was attended by CTA General Secretary Zafar Qadri, Munir Mughal, Chaudhry Farooq, Hassan Mustafa, Waseem Ahmed, Nadir Ali, Nabeel Mir, Gul Khan and others.

Mr Qadri said: “LHC’s Rawalpindi bench declared the decision of RCB null and void but RCB contractors are forcing shopkeepers to pay the tax. It is a violation of the court orders and we have the right to move contempt of court decision.

“Cantonment traders will not give such fees and taxes which are not under administrative authority of the civic body. The RCB is trying to increase its revenue instead of providing facilities to the residents and the shopkeepers.”

RCB cancelled the tax collection contract for sign boards on June 30, 2020 and in this regard, it also issued an advertisement in newspapers. However, he said, the same contractor was collecting fee from traders on behalf of RCB.

It can be mentioned here that most shopkeepers did not pay fees to RCB following which the civic body decided to outsource fee collection for signboards.

When contacted, RCB spokesperson Qaiser Mehmood said the RCB cancelled the contract of fee collection on shop signboards as the contractor failed to recover the fees in the last fiscal year.

He said the contractor was of the view that due to Covid-19, he failed to recover fees from shopkeepers in 2019-20 and he was given time to collect last year’s fee by Jan 31.

“We are not collecting the fee for new fiscal year 2020-21 after the decision of Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2021