ISLAMABAD (Kashmir English): Pakistan’s transport sector faces yet another head-on collision with the government over its daily adjustments on petroleum prices. Transporters have escalated their protest, saying that they will launch a nationwide strike within the next one to two days.
A string of meetings are going on all around the country to chalk out the future course of action. According to the Pakistan Goods Transport Alliance (PGTA), consultations with transporters nationwide were in the last phase to make an official statement about the strike.
“Due to a steep rise in fuel prices, multiple types of taxation, and operating expenses, we are unable to run our business,” transporters said. “The daily revisions by the government for petroleum prices have created uncertainty in terms of calculation of freight charge.”
“The transport sector has been going through severe financial problems for months now owing to rising costs and therefore, we are against this daily price fixing mechanism of fuels.
We strongly urge the government to consider reducing the cost of petroleum and alleviate the burden of various kinds of toll taxes and levies such as withholding tax, motorway charges and traffic fines on our sector.”
“We appeal to you to adhere to your agreement with us, which was signed in December, wherein there were various commitments undertaken by the Government. We hope that those promises would have been fulfilled at least partially,” said President of Pakistan Goods Transport Alliance (PGTA), Malik Shehzad Awan.
Pakistan has recently adopted a more frequent mechanism for determining fuel prices based on the fluctuations of both the international prices of oil and its exchange rate in place of the earlier practice of reviewing them every fortnight.
“With our current challenges already affecting transporters’ ability to operate, we will be concerned with increased volatility in the cost of freight if this new regime sees an impact on that,” said Patel.
“If there’s a strike as such, obviously the impact would be felt across the whole country when it comes to the movement of goods and disruption to supply chains, which then has implications for price increases for essential commodities.”
