If anyone dares to protest against this state of affairs, the magistrate would threaten to jail them
LAHORE: Today, I am a disheartened petrol station owner who is selling his business and sacking 15 employees. Right at the start of the year, when every Pakistani was busy praying for a better future for the country, the DCO Lahore, with his magistrates, was busy minting penalties out of petrol stations. It is a simple shop-keeping rule that you do not buy sales stock in one day to sell it all at a loss the next day, given that fuel refineries have stopped buying fuel from the Pakistan State Oil. Consequently, on the last days before petrol price change, petrol stations were not given any supplies from refineries. Needless to say, the stations have to bear the brunt of this. Approximately Rs30,000-70,000 were charged and collected in cash from 260 stations in Lahore without any proper fine challan or payment slips.
If anyone dares to protest against this state of affairs, the magistrate would threaten to jail them.
What law states that you can force a business to go on operating while making a loss? It is the government’s responsibility to manage supplies to petrol stations and then start from the top tier of this industry, i.e., from state-owned oil refineries. I would like to request the authorities concerned to kindly do some homework before bullying small business holders and prepare a price control mechanism that does not result in an unmanageable loss for businesses. Moreover, even if these fines are collected, then where do they all go? In the DCO’s pocket or the magistrate’s?
Abdullah Khattak
Published in The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2015.
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