Traders reject anti-hoarding ordinance

Threaten shutter-down strike against raids, arrests

RAWALPINDI:

The Anjuman-e-Tajiran Pakistan, the Kariana Merchant Association, the Anjuman-e-Tajiran Sabzi and Nanbai Association have rejected the anti-hoarding and profiteering ordinance issued by the Punjab government.

The Punjab government has amended the “Price Control, and Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act, 2022” to ensure the necessary supply of essential commodities during the emergent situation as a result of Covid-19. The purpose of the ordinance is to halt the hoarding of goods, especially essential food and sanitary items, by means of making the same an offence under the law and devising a mechanism for reporting of hoarding, schemes of adjudication, and penalty thereof.

Under the new law, shopkeepers will be fined between Rs5,000 and Rs0.1 million with three to six months imprisonment for hoarding and inflation.

Punjab Grocery Association leader Saleem Pervaiz Butt, President Anjuman-e-Tajiran Sabzi Mandi Ghulam Qadir Mir, Sheikh Asad Zahoor People's Trader Cell central leader Naveed Kanwal said that the new law was cruel and if any action was taken under this law, a complete shutter down strike will be called across Punjab.

They said that the Rawalpindi administration has now mobilised the Special Branch police to take action against traders accusing them of profiteering, hoarding and inflation. “Special Branch police personnel have started issuing challans to shopkeepers under the pretext of shopping and this should stop. The administration wants traders and shopkeepers to fight with the government. If any shopkeeper is fined under the new law, there will be strong protests across Punjab,” the trader leaders said. They said that grocery stores across Punjab will also be closed if the administration continued with raiding shops and stories.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17, 2022.