Traders reaffirm support for strike on 13th

LAHORE :Traders Wednesday reaffirmed their announcement of observing countrywide shutter-down strike on July 13 against the taxation measures taken by the government through Finance Act 2019-20.

The reaffirmation was made by the trader leaders in a press conference after the government attempted to break their unity against the government’s taxation measures. The central leadership of All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajirn and the representatives from all the major markets of the City said that the government was calling the sub-groups of the All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajirn (APAT) to call off the strike. However, the traders have already unanimously decided to observe shutter down strike across the country on July 13 and any individual signatory to the resolutions passed by the traders could not betrayed. If some individual group attempted to betray the agreed resolution, it would be declared and labelled as traitor in the community and would always be deal in the same way.

The federal government has called a number of groups of the APAT and Pakistan Traders Front to meet both federal and provincial government authorities to call off the shutter-down strike of July 13. The representatives of the groups had already met the top officials of Punjab and federal governments but so far none of trader wing supported calling off the shutter-down strike.

The trader leaders said that no individual group could negotiate with the government as a committee had been nominated for talks with the government. Now they will talk with Prime Minister Imran Khan only as the rounds of talks earlier held with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman, ministers and advisers had failed. Meeting the same officials again is useless, the trader leader said, adding that the government was not serious in resolving the issues and end the crisis as it constituted a committee of provincial government representatives while the issues of the traders were related with the federal budget taxation measures. “The issues of provincial budget have not discussed which we will raise once the federal government taxation issues are resolved,” the trade leaders said.