Staff Reporter
Blasting the Sindh government for “doing nothing” for Karachi’s traders during the ongoing lockdown, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has announced its rejection to the recently signed Sindh COVID-19 Emergency Relief Ordinance 2020 and demanded of the government to allow traders to run their business 24/7 throughout the week.
MQM-P Convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said his party fully endorsed the demands of Karachi’s traders, and if the traders’ bodies were ready to protest, the party was ready to support them.
He was addressing a joint meeting of leaders of various trades’ bodies held in a park near the MQM-P’s secretariat in Bahadurabad. He said party leaders were in contact with various traders and market associations across the city and were listening to their genuine grievances.
Karachi’s small traders were being discriminated against as only the metropolis remained under the lockdown, Siddiqui said, adding that the Pakistan Peoples Party’s “racist” provincial government would never take care of the interest of Karachi’s traders. “But the MQM-P will leave the traders’ fraternity alone in the crisis.”
The MQM-P had sent its leader to meet the Sindh chief minister to discuss the traders’ problems, “but we knew that it would not work”, he said.
The traders of Karachi, a city that had been earning 70 per cent of the country’s revenue, had been deprived of their genuine rights, he said.
“As being a doctor and a responsible person, I know the threat of the coronavirus spread. But the government’s ill-planned policies have been spreading it,” he added. Karachi’s traders had paid 79 per cent sales tax while traders in Lahore had only paid five per cent, he said. “The Punjab government has allowed the transport to operate today. Could the coronavirus not enter there?” he asked.
