Small traders protest against withholding tax
By Shazia Hasan
2015-09-10
KARACHI: A row of packed and tightly fastened wheel carts against the bacl
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 traf-fic 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 mal
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 thebusiness. But it is fine as long as some good can out of it,` he said.
Saeeda Fageer 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 ofopening 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.
